ramble on randonnée

Bear Mountain to Manhattan

2009-10-18T14:15:00.000-07:00

Friday morning, after a great night's sleep, I woke up to the sun shining! While taking advantage of the contintental breakfast in the lodge, I realized that everyone besides me in the common room was a West Point grad; I presume they were having a reunion because there were conversations going on around me concerning graduate years, class of whatever, etc. I hadn't realized that West Point was just up the road from here until R had pointed it out across the river the previous day. At any rate, this early morning sunshine was about all we got this last day on the road; there was another thunderstorm rolling in, and it was clouding over by the time we left Bear Mountain for Manhattan.

Just south of Bear Mountain, the route 9 bike signs direct you off the highway (we were on 9W at this point) to a dirt path. We went about 50 feet on it and quickly determined it wasn't passable with our tires. And I have 700x38s. It's dirt and chunky gravel, not very well maintained. So if you're in that area I would recommend staying on the highway.

This last 50 miles of route 9 are a bit hillier than the previous stretches we had been on, but it wasn't that bad. A couple of short climbs and several rollers. At Haverstraw we avoided some of the town congestion by following the signs down to the waterfront, although once the route rejoined the town center we managed to get turned around, just briefly. At one point the route 9 bicycle sign clearly pointed left, but we figured soon enough that we really needed to go right. Good times.

Our half-way point was Nyack, a really charming town right along the west bank of the Hudson River. Past Nyack we came to Piermont, where we stopped for lunch. At this point we were only about 12 miles from the George Washington Bridge, and stopped for a leisurely lunch at a little French bistro called Sidewalk Bistro. The French owner noticed our bikes and invited us to park them in the back garden area, which was very nice. I enjoyed a croque monsieur and a beer for lunch. Fabulous! During lunch we chatted with a fellow bicyclist, also with a loaded touring bike. He was from Montreal and heading down to Brooklyn. We wished him well and then hit the road for the final few miles back to Manhattan.

This portion of the route was gently hilly but mostly very comfortable terrain. Obviously Rachael knows this route well, so she led us through the final twists and turns to reach the south side of the George Washington Bridge, only to find it closed! So then we had to use the north side of the bridge, which involves going up and down about six flights of stairs, which I can tell you is not any fun with a loaded touring bike. Just getting up and down these stairs took us about 20 minutes. Once that little adventure was over, we were just cruising home along the Hudson River greenway. After not too long we saw our Montreal friend sitting on a park bench with a map, trying to figure out how to get to Brooklyn from this point. (I was surprised he had managed to get to the GW bridge and across). Rachael being a kind and generous soul offered to escort Jacques down to the Brooklyn bridge. I headed back to the apartment to begin celebrating the completion of the tour: 308 miles in the saddle!

The real celebration was later that evening, when we headed over to wd-50 for a fabulous dinner. I had the hanger tartare, the wagyu skirt steak, and about 17 desserts. Excellent end to the tour.

Mills Norrie to Bear Mountain (50 miles)

2009-10-14T20:53:00.000-07:00

On Thursday morning we left Mills Norrie relatively early. It was cold in the morning, probably in the low 40s, and misting as we left our cabin in the park and rejoined state route 9 to head toward our next destination, Bear Mountain. After just a few miles on the road we passed through Hyde Park and stopped off to see the Vanderbilt mansion. I understand that this was one of their smaller mansions, probably the equivalent of a rustic cottage for them. I scooted around back to catch a view from their terrace, looking down the Hudson River valley. Lovely spot!

Further down the road in Hyde Park we pulled off the road briefly to see FDR’s childhood home. I don’t think we went far enough into the compound to see his house (we stopped at a house in the front of the estate) but it was still cool to stop at FDR’s home. Past Hyde Park we passed through Poughkeepsie, which was interesting because the scenery went sort of like:

Sprawl > blue collar urban > expensive > middle class

Just in the course of a mile or two. But it definitely seemed like a real working town, not just a quaint tourist destination like some of the smaller villages we had passed through. Next we passed through the little town of Wappingers Falls, and it was at this point that we briefly lost track of the route 9 markers. The state 9 bicycle route is fairly well marked… until it isn’t. Or until the signs tell you to turn right instead of turning left, for instance. In Wappingers Falls we perhaps made a wrong turn, or perhaps not. At any rate, thanks to our maps we knew in general where we needed to be, so we were able to rejoin the route quickly. Unfortunately it was at this point that the official route joined up with a highway/freeway, so we found ourselves on the shoulder of a pretty busy road for about 5 miles before rolling into Fishkill. Fortunately, in Fishkill we found a great little lunch spot where we could relax, warm up, and get away from the highway traffic for a bit. It was a little place called Pamela’s Java Hut. Those who know me know how much I love a tiki island theme, so this was right up my alley. Also, it was warm and they were serving chili that day, so, Score!

Past Fishkill, route 9 took us off of the highway (thanks Albany!) and back to more infrequently-trafficked roads. About 10 more miles took us to Cold Spring, a really nice little village back on the river front. In Cold Spring we stopped to get food supplies at a local diner and bakery. Rachael has some interesting stories about that place… maybe she’ll share some of them (hint hint). While in Cold Spring the locals (or local Harley riders) seemed to think that the dark clouds were going to open up in a full downpour at any moment, so we were a bit motivated to hurry on towards Bear Mountain without too much delay.

It was also at this point that we decided to call Bear Mtn to ask if there were food stuffes in the immediate area because we weren’t sure whether to buy dinner at Cold Spring or wait until later. The Bear Mtn folks advised Rachael that we were being upgraded from our reserved lodgings (in the rustic stone cottages) to the Overlook Lodge. Another score!

From Cold Spring we just had about 8 miles to go to get to Bear Mtn, but we were riding at a decent pace to try to beat the rain. Just before Bear Mtn we crossed over the bridge to the west side of the river, and took a few moments to appreciate the river that we had been travelling alongside for so many miles on the trip.

Just on the other side of the river we arrived at Bear Mountain. On way up the road to the Overlook we passed by the stone cottages, which looked pretty nice really. These cottages were built in 1935 as a WPA public works project. Rachael had thought the ride up to the Overlook was going to be a lot worse than it was, so she kept trying to manage my expectations for the climb (like, we could still stay at the cottages if you want! They’re right here!) But in fact it wasn’t that far up the hill to get the Overlook, which was super nice but still under renovation. It seemed like we were the first guests to stay in our newly renovated rooms; even so it felt incredibly luxurious to stay in brand new rooms with new beds and marble bathrooms. It was a big step up from the comfort station at the Mills Norrie State Park. Even the promise of their modest continental breakfast in the morning sent us into raptures. Breakfast! Brewed coffee!!

So after a long day in the saddle, we were all checked in and decided to take it easy by… going for a long walk around the lake. There’s a nice path that goes all around the lake, and then we forged our own path up the hill, through the brush, back up to the Overlook. Along the way we popped our heads into one of the stone cottages; it looked nice. Strangely at the front desk of the Overlook I had overheard a guest complaining about the cottages smelling of smoke, and the woman at the front desk had said something like, "Yeah they do smell like smoke". Sure enough the one we walked into did smell of smoke, and the fire alarm was buzzing, so they must have had some kind of incident. That may have accounted for our mysterious upgrade to the lodge. At any rate, the accommodations were great and the good night’s sleep was much needed as we prepared for our last day on the road, heading back into Manhattan.

Days 4/5: Mills-Norrie and Dutchess County

2009-10-11T20:28:00.000-07:00

Tuesday morning we left our cottage at Lake Taghkanic to ride south to our next destination: Mills-Norrie State Park in Dutchess county. From Taghkanic we headed west to pick up state route 9 in the town of Livingston.

New York route 9 is a designated bike route that follows the highway for the most part (diverging from it at certain points) all the way from the George Washington Bridge in NYC to the Canadian border to the north. On this day we were travelling about 30 miles down route 9 to get to our next destination, and it was an easy day on the road, even carrying all of our gear in our panniers. This section of the route is very flat and we were able to get into a nice rhythm on the bikes. I think the most interesting part of this route is the historic towns that one passes through along the Hudson, beginning with Livingston where we joined route 9.

I’ve been reading a book on the history of the Hudson, and Livingston Manor figures prominently in the early English history of the Hudson river valley, in the 17th century, after the Dutch rule had waned. The original land grant that formed Livingston Manor covered 160,000 acres in Columbia and Dutchess counties. Further down the road, route 9 passes through Clermont, another artifact of the original Livingston Manor. Clermont Manor had been established in 1728 by Robert Livingston, one of the descendants of the elder Livingston. It’s hard to keep track of all these Livingstons, since they’re all named Robert. Some of them are even named Robert Robert. Anyway, all kinds of interesting history in this area: apparently it was the farthest north the British got up the Hudson during the American Revolution. It’s also the home of the first steamboat (also associated with a Livingston).

South of Clermont we passed through a town called Red Hook. We had gotten so used to little tiny hamlets that it was a surprise to pass through a substantial town in this part of the country. In Red Hook we noticed an interesting roadside sign: 104 miles to New York.

After Red Hook we cruised through the town of Rhinebeck, which we would revisit a couple of times on our ride the next day. Rhinebeck is a very charming little upscale town with lots of shops and eateries. While in Rhinebeck we grabbed lunch and food stuffes for dinner before continuing another 8 miles or so down the road to Mills Norrie.

While Mills Norrie was theoretically right off of route 9, it proved a little challenging to locate the cabins. The state park region is actually really large and encompasses the historic Mills Mansion as well as the small village of Staatsburg, which was probably established to support the mansion. We finally found the entrance to the state park, then meandered around a bit until we arrived in the general vicinity of the cabins. Even at that point it wasn’t at all clear where our cabin was or if we were even in the correct park. Rachael called the posted number and they pointed us toward a *cardboard* sign tacked to a tree that led the way to our cabin. Rustic! In fact the cabin was quite charming, nestled in forest, and right on the cliff-side overlooking the Hudson River. For dinner we feasted on bread, cheese, salami, pasta, and wine that we had bought in Rhinebeck.

On Wednesday we did a nice 50 mile loop through Rhinebeck and the surrounding countryside, passing through some small towns and climbing up one or two grades. This ride is #5 in Backroad Bicycling near New York City. It was a really nice ride, but it was so chilly that day that I was pre-occupied with thoughts of returning to the cabin and hanging out in the heated bathroom for several hours, just for warmth. On our return into Rhinebeck, we did stop at the CVS to pick up a duraflame log (I had been thwarted in my firemaking attempts the past two nights and was not going to fool around anymore). After Rhinebeck we did a quick cruise through Rhinecliff then headed back to the cabin at Mills-Norrie to warm up.

About 2 miles away from the cabin was this very small village, Staatsburg, that actually had one restaurant. This was the only night that we were really within range of a restaurant for dinner, so we cleaned up and took the bikes into town for a hot meal. The place is called Portofino, and it actually has decent reviews online from what I can tell. The main thing for us was that it was hot food and super cheap: my memory is a bit fuzzy but it seems like we had a 4 course meal with wine flight for $25. Granted the food was just so-so, but it still hit the spot. The 2 mile bike ride back to the cabin was cold. So cold. But thanks to the duraflame we got the fire going and were able to warm up a bit.

Also, Rachael had a giant, ugly, probably deadly venomous, spider in her room, which I captured and deposited outside. Good times.

Next: Bear Mountain and back to civilization

Days 2/3: Lake Taghkanic, Hills and farms of Columbia county

2009-10-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

On Sunday we drove south from Lake George to Lake Taghkanic in Columbia county, where John dropped us off with our bikes and gear before heading back to the city. We tried to talk him into ditching work and instead sticking around to ride with us for a few more days; but I guess he was just too eager to head back to work on Monday. That’s dedication!

Our accommodations in Lake Taghkanic were in a comfortable cottage in Lake Taghkanic State Park. The nice thing about these cottages and cabins was that, although they didn’t have heating, they were equipped with fridges and stoves so we were able to heat water, make some simple dinners, and store adequate supplies of beer. Close by to Taghkanic State Park is Taconic State Park. According to at least one unreliable website, Taghkanic is an older spelling of Taconic, which makes sense but is a bit confusing if you ask me.

Monday morning we woke up relatively early to do a 50 mile tour of the farms and hills of southeast Columbia. This route took us through quiet country backroads, sometimes on rough gravel or dirt roads, under canopies of autumn trees almost at peak color. The terrain on this route is definitely hilly, with lots of rollers, but it’s lovely scenery. We passed through a couple of very small villages, such as Philmont, in which I came to the realization that it is sometimes hard to find an espresso in small villages and hamlets. We also passed through a strange small town called Harlemville. It was strange because it felt like a Northern California hippie enclave, complete with independent bookstore and healthfood store. Even the people walking around looked like ex-California hippies. I think this might be because there’s a large biodynamic farm located there, called Hawthorne Valley Farm. Or it could be a weird hippie cult ensconced in mid-upstate New York.

From Harlemville the route turns south and heads through Copake Falls and Copake. Copake Falls is right at a key entrance to Taconic State Park and offers access to the Harlem Valley Rail Trail. Also, there’s apparently a short hike here that leads to the Bash Bish Falls in Massachusetts, the highest falls in that state. We didn’t head up to see it as we were trying to rush a bit to beat an incoming thunderstorm, but sounds like it might be worth a stop. Copake Falls also features a general store with deli, offering a convenient lunch stop on the way back to Taghkanic.

Speaking of thunderstorms, I bought a terrible novel to read along the way, called Silent Thunder. This was the best of a horrendous selection of romance/suspense novels offered at the rest stop along the interstate. It’s about a “marine architect” named Hannah, a secret collection of symbols on the back of a submarine panel, and a Russian assassin named Kirov. Kirov!

Next: Mills-Norrie and Dutchess County

Henry Hudson 400th Anniversary River Tour (HH4x3) – 308 miles

2009-10-06T21:35:00.000-07:00

About six weeks ago my good buddy Rachael started talking about celebrating the 400 year anniversary of Henry Hudson’s historic river discovery by embarking on a bicycle tour down the Hudson river valley. Because I cannot ever pass up a touring opportunity, I invited myself and Artemis (my Dahon Tournado) along for the ride. It was a great trip. Images and themes: the River (duh), country roads, autumn colors, chilly weather, and fire (both fireplace and campfire variety).

I arrived in Manhattan on Thursday with my Dahon packed and intact. This was my first time travelling with the Dahon packed up in its big suitcase, so I was a bit worried about how the airline might handle it. I had absolutely no problems with the bike on arrival, and as a bonus JetBlue didn’t even charge me the $50 bike handling fee. Although the case is a bit large and heavy (total weight = 44 lbs packed) I don’t think they realized that it was a bicycle. So... on Friday, Rachael and I packed up the car with our 3-bicycle stack and gear. We’re getting ridiculously good at this packing job; I actually think we could fit a fourth bike in this stack if we had to. Friday evening we headed up north to our first stop in Lake George. Along the way we were treated to a great fireworks show along the river in Albany. I’m not sure what the occasion was, but it was a cool treat.

Day 1: Lake George – Bolton Landing and Pilot Knob Loop (62 miles)
On Saturday we took advantage of the sunny weather to piece together two distinct loops in the Lake George area:

* Bolton Landing (30 miles, 2400 ft), on the west side of the lake
* Pilot Knob Loop (32 miles), on the east side

The Bolton Landing ride featured a nice stretch along the Lake George waterfront, then a bit of a climb up to Riverbank, followed by a nice meandering ride along Schroon River Road, which we had travelled on during our previous trip to the Adirondacks two summers ago. The second loop followed the south end of the lake, where the steamboats depart, and then followed the eastern edge of the lake. Along this side there were some marshlands that were in peak autumn color, and one of the highlights was a nice stretch along a beautiful rail trail between Glens Falls and Lake George.

Our accommodations in Lake George were great: a comfortable and cozy cottage at Cramer’s Point, complete with fireplace! With the innkeeper's help we built a nice roaring fire on Saturday night. Perfect for a chilly autumn evening in the Adirondacks.

Next: Lake Taghkanic, Hills and farms of Columbia county

Tour de Tahoe – “Bike Big Blue” ride (73 miles)

2009-09-14T16:20:00.000-07:00

This Sunday’s ride was the Tour de Tahoe – Bike Big Blue ride around Lake Tahoe. The 72 mile loop circumnavigates the lake and is a moderate ride with somewhere between 2600 and 4500 feet of climbing, depending on whether you go by the official website or bikely.com’s elevation calculation. I’m going to guess it’s about 3500 feet of climbing total, over mostly rolling terrain, a couple of notable climbs, and several fast descents.

I got a relatively early start on Sunday morning.. was in the Horizon parking lot by 7 and crossing the start line by 7:05. We had had thunder storms the previous day, but Sunday morning was relatively clear and just a bit chilly. Outside of South Lake Tahoe, around mile 10, we began the first major climb of the day up towards the top of Emerald Bay. Driving around the lake, this is the sketchiest stretch of road. It’s very narrow, no shoulder, steep drop-offs, switchbacks, etc. Near the top there’s a narrow finger of highway with the bay on one side and Cascade lake on the other:

From Tour de Tahoe

On the bike it was actually not too bad. It was early enough that there were very few cars on the road, and there were only one or two short sections that were steep. The first rest stop was just past the top of the climb, at the parking lot for Vikingsholm Castle. This is a cool historic house that offers guided tours (I’ve toured this house before on a prior visit).

The next stretch of the route was really easy, with a long descent and then a flat section through the second rest stop at Homewood. Past Homewood the route continues through Tahoe City with an annoying but short climb up Dollar Hill. This was the stretch where I was feeling a little bit of the altitude, as the lake is at 6200 feet and the highest point of the route is at about 7100 feet.

Lunch was at Kings Beach, at mile 42. It wasn’t anything fancy, but they had subs, chips, cookies, and a pretty nice view.

After the lunch stop we cruised through Incline Village and Crystal Bay (amazing mansions lining the lake there) and then began the long slog up toward Spooner lake. This climb shouldn’t have been that tough – it was only 1000 feet gain over 7 miles or so, but in the heat of the day it was a bit rough. At the summit there was one last rest stop and then more or less 12 miles of descent to the finish line.

The organized ride was pretty good, but this route would be well-suited to a self-supported ride. Most of the southern and western shores have a dedicated multi-use path just off the highway, with the exception of the portion around Emerald Bay. The Nevada side has a bike lane almost the entire way. And there are plenty of little towns all along the route for food and services.

Death Ride Report – 3 passes

2009-07-12T16:24:00.000-07:00

Coming up to Tahoe mid-week to get ready for the Death Ride, I had more or less decided that I could really only do 2 passes rather than the 3 I had originally wanted to tackle. Work had been utterly ridiculous the past few weeks, really interfering with my training schedule. Then everything came to a head this past week and I had only gotten a few hours sleep each night. I was really not very optimistic about my performance on Saturday.
We arrived Wednesday evening and did a quick ride up Blue Lakes road. Checked in on Thursday and again did Blue Lakes. Friday I just did an easy, flat ride around South Lake Tahoe and got the bike ready for the big day. Saturday morning I was up at 3:30 am and over to pick up CCB by 4:20. We were out at the ride start and on the road by 5:20am.

From Death Ride 2009

Monitor Pass was once again a real pleasure to ride, and it seemed just a little bit easier this year than last. My post-ride data analysis shows that I climbed up Monitor slightly faster this year than last, this despite the heavier bicycle (Artemis) and my lack of fitness. [Speaking of Artemis, I must have gotten over 2 dozen compliments on the bike at various stages of the ride.] I think the granny gears on the touring bike probably helped since I was able to spin more and feel more relaxed on the climb. CCB and the others were all spread out over the course (all doing the 5 pass ride) but I ended up riding for a while with a woman from Portland who was going the same pace. I arrived at Monitor summit at 7:50am, feeling good.

After the beautiful, thrilling descent down Monitor, I headed in the direction of my second pass, the front side of Ebbetts. I saw Richard at Ebbetts base camp rest stop, and John, CCB, and Craig all passed me on the way up. I was feeling really comfortable up Ebbetts, even thinking that I could definitely go for the third pass. But then I got to within 3 miles of the summit and the nasty steep parts hit me like a ton of bricks. I had to stop every mile to catch my breath and let my heart rate drop down to something reasonable. Finally I made it to Ebbetts summit at 11:30am, and I was prepared to have a quick snack and call it a day.

I was standing next to my bike and someone asked me how many passes I was doing (this is the main conversation small talk at the rest stops). I broke down my initial plan to do three but then said I had decided not to do the back side of Ebbetts. This woman who was relaxing nearby said, Oh you should totally do the back side of Ebbetts. It’s the easiest of all the passes, it’s only 5 miles, and the first mile is flat and the last mile is flat. So it’s really only 3 miles of climbing.

I was all, “Really?” Cause my riding crew had said this pass was pretty tough. The woman assured me that I could do it and that it would only take me an hour. An hour.
I don’t know if it was the heat or dehydration or what, but I decided to go for the third pass. I filled up my water bottles and headed down the back side of Ebbetts to Hermit Valley. Then the deal is, you turn around and climb back up the same way. It’s about 5.5 miles and 1700 feet of elevation.

As I was descending to Hermit Valley, I was looking at the road grade and watching the hordes of people struggling up the ascent. My first thought was , Fuck. It was clear to me that it was not easy, nor flat, nor an hour’s worth of climbing. But at that point I was committed, so I cruised all the way down to Hermit Valley, got more water and used the pit toilets, then prepared to head back up. I ran into Craig down at Hermit Valley too. He had spotted my bike on the rack and was surprised to see me at Hermit Valley. We headed up the pass but he didn’t dawdle since he still had Carson Pass to climb. It was 12:15pm.

So I rode up the back side of Ebbetts, which took me an hour and 45 minutes to go approximately 5.5 miles. I had to stop every half mile or so to get out of the sun and take a breather. The pass itself isn’t that bad, but after doing Monitor and the front side of Ebbetts, I just didn’t have any reserve energy left. There were lots of people struggling up this pass.. people hanging out at the side of the road, slumped over their handle bars, some people walking their bikes, several people being SAGed up to the summit.

One guy passed me and said, "remember, we paid to do this." Clearly everyone up there was a glutton for punishment.

As we neared the summit a rider pointed out stray red vines on the ground, a sure sign we were getting near the rest stop and goodies. Sure enough, I spotted the orange cones of the rest stop and actually teared up at the sight. I was really happy to be done with that pass.

After that, it was downhill to the lunch stop (which wasn’t that great.. weird sandwich wraps) and then on to Markleeville and up the 500 ft gain to Turtle Rock. Just like last year, that little hill nearly did me in. It was hot out by this point.. 95 degrees.. and there’s no shade on that approach, just the hot winds blowing in your face.Yuck. But I finally made it, rolled up the car at 3:45pm. Yay!

P.S. Congrats to CCB, John, Craig, and Richard, who all completed 5 passes. Nice job guys.

Ride Stats
Begin/End: 5:20am to 3:45pm
Mileage: 68 miles
Elevation gain (total): 8923 feet
Passes: Monitor Pass (3000 ft), Ebbetts front (3000 ft), Ebbetts back (1770 ft)
Max speed: 53.1 mph, coming down Monitor
Slowest speed: 2.5 mph, climbing up Ebbetts from Hermit Valley

2 weeks till Death Ride

2009-06-28T10:37:00.001-07:00

This was the last weekend of official Death Ride training. After this point I'll be doing easy workouts and easy rides for the most part, gearing up to July 11th.

On Saturday, I had planned to do two times up Diablo North Gate to Juniper campground, and then one leg up South Gate to the junction. That would have given me about 7000 ft of climbing. But it was so hot on Diablo on Saturday, I had to cut my ride short. The air temp was 97 degrees, and the asphault felt way hot than that. I could feel the heat coming up through my cycling shoes on each pedal stroke. Anyway, I did one trip up North Gate to juniper, then once more up North Gate to about where the ranch is, just before the switchbacks. I figure that's around 4500 ft.

To supplement, I did 1.5 times up to Skyline today, total of about 2000 feet of climbing. It'll have to do. Just like last year, I wish I had done more training, especially during the week. But work craziness really got in the way.

Climbing up North Gate on Saturday, listening to my ipod, I had a great idea: my mother gave me this battery operated speaker set for an ipod. I'm going to take this with me on the Death Ride, strap it onto my trunk bag, and I'll have tunes to keep me going. I'm already putting together my Death Ride playlist, and it's going to rock!

Diablo junction x2 - almost

2009-05-25T17:37:00.000-07:00

This morning was once again overcast, so I headed out east to find some sunshine. I debated doing a couple of different rides (possibly Morgan Territory) but in the end decided to go back to Mt. Diablo. At this point last year (May 25th in fact) I rode up to the ranger station on Diablo twice, so I figured this would be a good milestone for me to hit this weekend.

The weather was perfect: sunny, warm, slight breeze, just great conditions for a ride. Going up North Gate I tried to push myself a little bit more than I had on Saturday, particularly on the final third with the switchbacks. I ended up making it to the junction in 76 minutes, which is still hella slow but not as epically slow as the 83 minutes it took me on Saturday. I'd like to get that down to 65-70 minutes in the next 6 weeks.

From the junction I headed down South Gate and then turned around at the base and came back up. I didn't quite go all the way back to the ranger station, but rode as far as the Rock City flats before turning around and heading to Danville for a snack. Energy level was ok; I certainly felt fatigued but probably could have made it to the junction. What ended up bothering me was my lower back. So I need to get back into doing some exercises to strengthen my core a bit. Other than that, it was a good ride. I'm feeling a little bit better about my chances for the Death Ride after this weekend's training.

Recovery ride - Orinda/Danville/Lafayette (30 miles)

2009-05-24T15:47:00.000-07:00

Today was my recovery day between climbing days, so I just took it easy and did a flat spin from Orinda to Danville and then back to Lafayette to catch BART. About 30 miles total. In Danville, KC and I stopped for lunch at a place called Pete's Brass Rail and Car wash that has neither a brass rail nor a car wash but good burgers and several draft beers. We were the only ones sitting out on the patio, what with the marine layer still hovering all the way out in Danville of all places. When a few other folks did show up they actually turned on the heat lamps. It was cold.

Tomorrow, if the cloud cover is still around, I'm going to skip Mt Tam and head east to find some sunshine.

Diablo to the summit

2009-05-23T18:11:00.001-07:00

Today I had planned to go over to Marin and ride up Mt Tam, but I woke up to a thick marine layer, which would mean freezing temps over the Golden Gate bridge and a cold cloudy ride up Tamalpais. No fun. So, change of plans: instead I took BART out to Walnut Creek for a ride up to the summit of Diablo. This was my first ride up to the summit this season, and I felt pretty darn good. Although, I'm riding super slow these days on the Tournado, at least on the initial 6.5 miles up to the junction. Here's the data:

Last year, riding the Dolce:
5/11/08 - Up North Gate to the junction in 72 minutes
5/25/08 - 69 minutes
5/31/08 - 66 minutes
6/7/08 - 63 minutes!
3/8/09 - 72 minutes (ok, a bit slow, but early in the season)
5/23/09 - 83 minutes, a full 20 minutes slower than my best time last year in June

However, my times past the junction up to the summit aren't that bad. They're just a minute or two off my times last year. So I think what's happening is: when I climb I tend to spend a lot of time in my easiest gear, and my easiest gear is a lot slower on the Dahon. So, on the more moderate portion of the Diablo climb, I'm riding slower but probably more relaxed than on the Dolce. On the steeper parts above the junction, I really used to struggle on the Dolce but on the Dahon I can continue riding at a more relaxed pace and use some of the energy I conserved on the first part of the ride. So, all in all, it's not a bad thing. But it means that I may need to account for a slower pace on the Death Ride.

Riding up North Gate it was cold and blustery, but at about 2700 feet I emerged out of the cloud cover and it was sunny and warm the rest of the way up. You can see the marine layer hugging the hills to the west from Juniper campground (3000 feet):

At the summit there were lots of cyclists. One obnoxious guy was loudly telling everyone that he was training for the Death Ride and that it takes a *real commitment* blah blah. Dude, everyone's training for the Death Ride. Yawn. Another guy came over to compliment me on my Tournado. Everyone likes the old school stylings!

Ride Stats
Total miles: 38 miles
Total elevation gain: 3940 feet

Death Ride training

2009-05-22T17:38:00.000-07:00

I've really been slacking off on the blog posting this year, mostly because of workload I guess. But that doesn't mean I haven't been riding! I've also been neglecting my mileage stats spreadsheet, which is a shame cause it's kind of like balancing your checkbook. Once it's out of date, you'll never get it back to its original state of accuracy.

Anyhoodle, since the Cinderella way back in April, I did the Wine Country Century with my buddies from NYC, but it was monsoon weather so R and I did the bailout route which still got us to 79 miles for the day. J was a machine and did the full century in the torrential downpour that seems to follow us where ever we ride.

After the WCC, it was time to start training seriously for the Death Ride. The weekend after the Wine Country Century, I did a nice ride up Mt Diablo to Juniper Campground. Last weekend we had a freak heat wave so I had to do a shorter mileage route but still managed to get some good climbing in. This weekend, I'm going to do two rides with some significant climbing:

Tomorrow (Saturday) I'm going to do the Mt. Tam loop, starting in the city and going clockwise. So, up Panoramic Highway to the junction, up to the summit, then heading north past Alpine Dam to Fairfax and then back down through the Marin valley to Sausalito. Should be 50-55 miles and 4500 feet of climbing.

Then on Sunday or possibly Monday, ride up Diablo to the summit.

Only 7 weeks left till the big ride.

Cinderella 2009 (64 miles)

2009-04-05T17:51:00.000-07:00

This weekend was the annual Cinderella metric century. I think this is the fourth year I’ve done this ride, and while I usually ride this one solo, this year I rode with a colleague who is training for the SF-LA AIDS ride this summer. She was also nice enough to give me a ride to the starting line (in Dublin/Pleasanton) since I’m currently car-less. Thanks Sharon!

In order to beat the bottleneck at the parking lot, we headed out pretty early and were in Pleasanton by 6:45 or so. It still took 20 or 30 minute to wind through the parking lot maze, but we were checked in and on the road by about 7:30.

The temperature was surprisingly chilly when we started out.. a guy passing by said it was 42 degrees. I was glad I had brought my leg warmers and ear warmers, but was still a bit cold throughout the day. Other than the cool temperature, it was a lovely day for a ride. It was very sunny and just a moderate breeze blowing mostly from the north. This meant that when we got to the standard “wind tunnel” part of the route, it actually wasn’t that bad. That part of the route travels mostly west with a few northerly jogs, so there were short patches of dealing with the wind, but not too bad.

My challenge was my continuing problem with my Dolce saddle. You might recall that last month I had bought a new Specialized Ruby saddle and had been initially happy at the lack of soft tissue pain. But then my sit bones ended up sore after 30 miles. So… I decided I just couldn’t ride that saddle on the Cinderella. Instead I fell back to my Brooks saddle that I had taken off the Terry. The Brooks was fine in terms of sit bones… no pain there. But after about mile 20 I started feeling it in the soft tissue. It got a little better near the end of the ride (or maybe I just had enough nerve damage to no longer feel pain?) but it’s definitely not going to work out long term. Back to the drawing board saddle-wise.

Last year I completed this ride in about 4 hours and 40 minutes (that’s time in the saddle). This year I didn’t push as much, since I was riding with my colleague who’s a little bit slower than me, although not really by much. I felt great pretty much the whole ride, with a little fatigue setting in around mile 50. But my cycle computer tells that that I had 5 hours and 25 minutes of active riding time! Now I’m thinking that 10 minutes of that time was actually walking back to the car after the expo, but still. That’s pretty slow.

Speaking of the expo, our friends at Rivendell had a booth this year. I don’t remember seeing them there before. They were showing off a couple of new models including a replacement for the Bleriot called the Sam Hillborne. About $2000 for a complete bike, and it looked real nice. I think I convinced my coworker to go visit them and talk to them about a new bike.

This was weird: we were riding through rural Livermore in the early part of the ride when we passed by a police officer pulling a blue tarp over a dead horse. It was very strange.. this big animal near the side of the road, with its hooves sticking out under this tarp. I noticed broken car glass around the area, so supposed a car ran into the horse..somehow. Googled it and apparently a pickup truck ran into the horse that had wandered into the road.

Total Distance: about 64 miles
Elevation gain: 23000 feet
Elapsed time: 5 hours and 15 minutes

Walnut Creek-Diablo-Moraga Loop (40 miles)

2009-03-08T19:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I spent about an hour and 160 bucks on a new saddle for my Specialized Dolce, so I was anxious to put it to the test on a longish ride. I’ve had a really hard time finding a replacement saddle that works for me on this bike. The saddle that came with it originally worked fine for a couple of years, but then started causing some discomfort during long ride... mostly soft tissue discomfort in the pelvic area. Thus began the search for a replacement saddle. I tried two different Terry saddles, neither of which worked, and then briefly tried putting one of my Brooks saddles on the bike, but that made the soft tissue discomfort worse. So, yesterday went down to Alameda Bicycle to check out the Specialized saddles, figuring that the original Specialized saddle had been the most comfortable of the lot. I tried a Jett first, and didn’t like that much, then tried a Ruby Gel and it felt pretty good on the spin around the block. Very firm but with a good cutaway so I didn’t feel any discomfort in the soft tissue area. Naturally it was the most expensive of the lot, because that’s how my butt rolls.

For this ride, I started in Walnut Creek and headed up North Gate. It was beautiful day for riding, light clouds, some sun, cool temps, but no rain. The ride up North Gate is pleasantly green from the recent rains, but alas very few wild flowers this season.

About a third of the way up I came across a loose dog.. I guess it was maybe a golden retriever, but had a reddish coat. He had tags with contact info, so he clearly wasn’t a stray. I hadn’t brought my cell with me, but a couple of other cyclists stopped and the woman called the owner. Strangely the owner didn’t seem in any kind of hurry to come and pick up his dog! He apparently said to point the dog in the direction of the trail and say “Go home!”. Cyclist woman was all, “that guy’s an idiot”. Seriously. You live 10 minutes away, someone calls to say they’ve found you’re dog, and you can’t get in your fricking car and go pick him up? What the hell man? The cycling couple took the dog with them down the hill, I guess in the hopes of intersecting with the owner. Hope that worked out.

I continued up the hill with some aspirations of getting to the ranger station under an hour. 2 miles from the station I started shooting for 65 minutes. That came and went and I was just trying to avoid logging my slowest time ever. Which I did avoid, but only by tie-ing my previous worst showing: 72 minutes. Blech. However I will note that the last time I logged this time up Diablo was last year in May, after I had completed the Wine Country Century and when I really started my Death Ride training. So, I guess I’m right where I should expect to be. But still, disappointing.

After the ranger station, headed down newly repaved South Gate, which is truly luscious with its brand new asphalty goodness. From the bottom of South Gate, headed to Danville, through Alamo, Lafayette, to Moraga, where I turned around and headed back to Lafayette to hop on BART.

So, the good news with the saddle: I had basically no soft tissue pain with this saddle, which is great! The bad news is that my sit bones began to ache around mile 30, making the final 10 miles of the ride kind of painful. In fact I really could have put in a few more miles, but just couldn’t stand being on the bike any longer. I’m hoping that the sit bone pain will go away once I get used to the saddle. Otherwise, I’m going to be quite annoyed.

Animules: horses, one loose dog, one wild turkey
Total Distance: 40 miles
Elevation gain: about 2500 feet
Time in the Saddle: 3 hours 45 minutes

Chabot loop from Rockridge (about 40 miles)

2009-02-28T19:15:00.000-08:00

Browsing through my old blog notes, I was surprised to see that I had never written up this route, since I used to ride variations of it fairly often. I guess I haven’t done this ride for a while, and after today, I think I remember why. It’s not a terrible ride, but it’s a bit utilitarian, not very scenic, a bit ghetto, and slightly annoying with the hill profile. On the up side, it’s an easy way to get in a 40 mile loop from my front door. This ride is based on the Oakland Yellow Jackets routesheet, with some minor modifications at the beginning and end.

From Rockridge the route follows the standard bike route down to uptown Oakland/Lake Merritt (basically following my commute route). Then around the lake, under the freeway, and over to Alameda. Alameda is a pleasant little island community that used to a big naval base in the bay area. I was pleased to see that they’ve added a dedicated bike lane on the approach to the bicycle bridge connecting Alameda and Bay Farm. Sweet! No more cutting across traffic and getting on the sidewalk to approach the bike bridge.

From the bike bridge I like to go around the miniature airplane airfield and head out towards the airport. There’s a dedicated bike lane that runs parallel to the airport access road, which is nice. Today it was a bit of a wind tunnel, with breezes blowing from the south. From the airport the route goes along busy boulevards of San Leandro, and at mile 20, starts a short climb up to Lake Chabot. The climb up Fairmont to Chabot is slightly longer than a mile but covers 500 feet in elevation gain, so it’s a bit of a pain.

After the climb, the first of two scenic sections begins: the ride alongside Lake Chabot. Unfortunately it’s all too short of a stretch, and pretty soon you’re back in San Leandro. Now from here there are a couple of ways to get back to Oakland. One is a straight shot through the San Leandro and east Oakland ghettos.. not very nice. The other principal way is to follow Mountain Blvd as it meanders along just at the base of the Oakland hills. This route is slightly less ghetto but annoying with the terrain. You’re constantly climbing short steep risers only to drop back down again, so you get the pain of climbing without the sense of accomplishment.

Past the Mormon Temple, at Park Blvd, instead of turning left to return to Lake Merritt I turn right to rejoin Mountain Blvd through Montclair, a really cute little town. Past Montclair, the road takes you to Broadway Terrace and Lake Temescal (cut through via the multi-use path). From here wind your way over to Chabot Road in Rockridge and you’re done.

Total Distance: about 40 miles
Elevation gain: 2300 feet
Routesheet (on bikely.com): Chabot Loop from Rockridge

Time Trial: Old Tunnel Road

2009-02-21T11:25:00.000-08:00

My three readers will recall that last week when I did my time trial route I was pretty disappointed in my time: 55 minutes elapsed from Claremont/College up to Grizzly Peak. This week I rode the same route on the aluminum frame Specialized Dolce, and my elapsed time was 49 minutes. This is much more in line with my expectations, and consistent with times logged last January at the beginning of the season.

6 minutes is a lot of time to shave off a 5 mile ride, and I know I didn’t improve my fitness in the past week. So, what happened last week? I think part of it has to do with the difference in the bikes. Artemis is a bit heavier and has much wider plusher tires. I think Artemis has 700x35s where the Dolce has 700x23. The two bikes also have completely different gearing, both in terms of the cassettes and the chainrings in front, with the result being that the touring bike has a couple more easier gears than the Specialized road bike. I think I may be hanging out in those granny gears a bit longer than I really need to, and that may account for the slower overall time. Next time I take the touring bike on the time trial, I’m going to try to stay out of my two easiest gears as much as possible to see if I can improve my time on that bike.

I was pretty happy with my time today, and it was nice to take the Dolce off the indoor trainer and get it out on the road for a change. I’ve been neglecting this bike a bit since I got the new touring bike in the fall, so it felt good to take it out for a spin.

Bike: Specialized Dolce
Total Time Clocked, from Claremont/College to Grizzly Peak: 49 minutes
Actual Ride time: unknown; probably 48 minutes
Total Distance: 5.4 miles

Time Trial: Old Tunnel Road

2009-02-16T15:18:00.000-08:00

The rained stopped for about 2 hours today, so I hopped on the bike for a quick ride up Old Tunnel. About half way up I decided to make this a time trial, and I'm afraid the results were pretty sad. 55 minutes to get from Claremeont/College to Grizzly Peak! Last January I clocked this at 49 minutes elapsed time (actual ride time is usually 2.5-3 minutes less due to 2 stop lights).

Now, I am riding a slightly different route up through Claremont, and that adds about 3/10 of a mile to the total. And I'm riding the heavier Tournado with the fat tires, but still. Looks like I've got a lot of training to do.

Bike: Artemis (Dahon Tournado)
Total Time Clocked, from Claremont/College to Grizzly Peak: 55 minutes
Actual Ride time: unknown; probably 52 minutes
Total Distance: 5.4 miles

Tale of Two Climbs

2009-01-19T20:27:00.000-08:00

Seems like forever since I've done a serious ride, but I was able to take advantage of the three-day weekend to get in two climbs: one up to the ranger station on Tam, and the other up to the junction on Diablo.

The weather was perfect this weekend: sunny, warm, and clear. The unfortunate result of a drought that will probably produce lots of fires this summer, but for now it's great cycling weather. So, Sunday went riding in Marin with kc and his friend Roxanne. She's on the short side, but I was able to drop down the handlebars and seat post on the Terry for her, and that seemed to work well. That means with my growing fleet of bikes I can accommodate visiting cyclists from 4'11" to probably 5'9".

We parked near the multi-purpose trail in Marin City, north of Sausalito, and then did the Stinson Beach/Muir Woods loop clockwise. I've always done this ride counter-clockwise, but took a chance that maybe the climbing would be a bit better doing it in reverse. Following the route clockwise, you climb up through residential areas of Mill Valley, cross Panoramic Highway, then drop down to Muir Woods. From Muir Woods there's a bit of a climb (500') to get up to Highway 1 on the coast. That climb was a bit of a pain, and there were easterly winds up on the ridge, but going north on Highway 1 was pretty painless, and the view was great.

We stopped briefly in Stinson Beach before beginning the principal climb up to the Pantoll Station on Mt Tam. This climb is about 1500' over the course of 4 miles, but it's a great climb. It's very evenly graded, without any steep sections, and the second half is entirely shaded by forest. I felt awfully sluggish on all the climbs on this ride. Even kc was up ahead of me pretty much all day, which almost never happens. After the final climb it was a quick descent back to Mill Valley for lunch at the flatbread place. Yum, flatbread!

Route sheet: Muir Woods/Stinson ride
Total distance: about 27 miles
Total elevation gain: about 3000 feet

On Monday I BARTed out to Walnut Creek at a painfully early hour to meet ccb and his crew for a ride up to the Diablo junction. The temperature was cool when we started out, but it warmed up nicely and ended up being a great morning for a ride up North Gate. I rode slowly, but didn't feel as sluggish as the day before. Also my headache pressure wasn't as pronounced for the first time in at least 2 weeks (long story). From the junction, we headed down the newly paved south side and over to Danville for a java before heading home. All in all a good mid-January ride.

Distance: about 30 miles
Elevation gain: 2300 feet

blog spotted?

2008-12-13T17:05:00.001-08:00

Coming out of Trader Joe's today, a couple of guys were admiring Artemis, my Dahon Tournado. They asked if it was mine, I said yes, and then one of them asked if I had a blog. Hey! Now I suppose it's possible that there are other people out there blogging about their Dahons, but I'm going to go ahead and claim a new reader all the same. This brings my total readership up to 5, a 25% increase over this time last year.

I think this is a clear mandate to keep blogging. Unfortunately with the weather turning cold and probably rainy, I don't think a ride up Diablo is looking likely tomorrow. It might have to be an indoor trainer day.

Harvest ride (about 55 miles)

2008-10-05T20:08:00.000-07:00

This weekend I went up to the Ukiah area for the Harvest Ride, which begins and ends at Fetzer winery in Hopland and goes around the wine-growing valley region at the southern end of Mendocino county. On the way up, I stopped in the Calistoga area to pick up wine orders at Rutherford, Cuvaison, and Vincent Arroyo. No time to do any tasting this trip, since I wanted to get up to Ukiah before dark.

Originally I had made a reservation at a budget motel in Ukiah, but then my friends recommended Vichy Springs Resort. It was about the same price, and I’m so glad I switched lodging. Vichy Springs is a modest renovated traditional style motel, with a couple of separate one-story buildings each with several small rooms. The room was simple was nicely decorated, but the main theme here is the hot springs, which are naturally carbonated. They have one largish hot tub with the special water, and then several individual tubs that you can fill up self-serve style. I tried one of these first but found the water too cool (they say it’s at around 90 degrees) so then ended up soaking in the large hot tub. Nice.

For dinner, went into downtown Ukiah, which was nothing to write home about, but had dinner at the Ukiah Brewing Company. The place has great California country ambiance, features organic ingredients, and offers several brews on tap.

Oh, another nice thing about Vichy Springs Resort is that they offer a really nice continental breakfast starting at 7:30. That ended up being perfect timing for a pre-ride breakfast.

It only took about 15 minutes to drive from Vichy to the starting point of the ride, at the Fetzer bottling facility in Hopland. While registering, I overheard one of the organizers say that only 250 or 300 riders had signed up this year, which I think makes this the smallest organized event I’ve ever done. It was nice at first, because there weren’t hordes of cyclists on the road, but it also meant that the ride wasn’t as well supported as others I’ve done. They had some snafus with the cue sheets and route signage. I had a complete double-sided route sheet, but others only had one side, and some folks apparently had a map stapled to theirs (I didn’t have a map at all). So lots of people were somewhat lost to begin with. Then there was at least one error on the cue sheet, where it listed a left turn instead of a right (hello!), and then they failed to mark a turn down a country road that had no road sign. So.. several dozen of us missed a turn and end up at the wrong rest stop, having cut out a 12-15 mile loop. Hence the not-quite-metric-goodness of the total distance for this event.

However, at the end of the ride, they had a fabulous barbecue back at the Fetzer winery. Maybe the best post-ride setup I’ve seen, although most conversations at the tables were about how the cue sheets and signs were totally screwed up.

Not sure if I’ll do this one again, but I would like to explore the area a bit more and spend some more time at Vichy Springs.

Bike vanity note: Got several compliments on the Tournado (Artemis?) Everyone agrees it is a very pretty bicycle.

Event begin and end: 8:40 am – 2:15pm

Total Distance: maybe 55 miles
Elevation gain: probably 2000 feet
Time in the Saddle: unknown

Tournado is in

2008-09-16T20:58:00.000-07:00

Well the Tournado finally arrived last week. I made a couple visits to the bike shop, as the guys were assembling it, and had a couple of components swapped out (the seatpost with pump, the cassette, and the derailleur). And now, at long last, it's finally home. It's a beauty...

From tournado

My one disappointment so far has been that the lovely new rack that I had ordered from Rivendell doesn't seem to fit. Argh. I'll have to go out to Walnut Creek and talk to those guys to figure out what the deal is.

August mileage stats and Dahon update

2008-08-31T14:40:00.000-07:00

August was a pretty good month, thanks mostly to the Bike Against the Odds ride on the 23rd. I missed one weekend of riding which accounts for the slightly lower total mileage.

In other news, my Dahon Tournado has still not arrived, but the bike shop expects it to arrive in their Tuesday shipment. Whee!

Total mileage for August: 333
Hours in the saddle: 29.7 hours
Total climbing: 18,500 feet

Mt Tam loop (47 miles)

2008-08-31T10:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday pmk and I did the Mt Tam loop, starting and finishing in Sausalito. Weather was pretty close to perfect: cool and overcast in the morning, with the sun breaking through by 10 so that we had some nice views along the ridge line and from the peak.

The climb up from Alpine Dam Bridge to Ridgecrest was a bit easier this time than last, although I was still creeping along at just under 4 mph. And the rollers along Ridgecrest are still a pain (it always seems like they’ll never end), but the views almost make up for it.

Up at the Tam visitors’ center, they’re doing a bunch of construction and walkway improvement, so the main area is a bit of a mess. The concession stand vendor said that they’re using labor from the Sonoma county correctional facilities, and that they only do work on the weekends. So I guess that may take a while to complete.

After the ride, we had lunch in downtown Mill Valley at a place called Small Shed Flatbreads, where the flatbreads feature local organic ingredients. Tasty! Then back to Sausalito for mojitos, cfg-style, and a post-ride dinner courtesy of pmk: salmon with roasted potatoes and brussel sprouts. Good stuff.

For the past few weeks pmk has been staying at this house up in the hills above Sausalito. The house belongs to the parents of the girlfriend of one of his employees, or some such thing. Everything about this house is pretty much perfect, and the views from the back patio are spectacular. Check it out:

Total Distance: 47 miles
Animules: lots of deer
Elevation gain: 4000 feet
Time in the Saddle: 5 hours

Update: pmk's garmin data shows a total elevation gain of 6400 feet, way more than what I estimated from my KLIMB software.

Harvest Ride century

2008-08-26T20:37:00.001-07:00

Next big event coming up: the Harvest Ride in Hopland (Mendocino County) the first weekend in October. I've signed up to do the full century, but have no idea what the route profile looks like. Mysterious!

Bike Against the Odds (70 mile route)

2008-08-24T15:21:00.000-07:00

This Saturday was the Bike Against the Odds charity ride, to benefit the Breast Cancer Fund. I reached my goal of raising $1000 in donations; thanks guys! Here's the official cfg ride report.

I began my Saturday morning by missing the BART train that I had wanted to take from my house to downtown Oakland. Not wanting to wait 20 minutes for the next train, I decided to go ahead and ride down to Lake Merritt. I took my usual commuting route so it felt almost like I was riding into work. On a Saturday. Yay! Anyway, I arrived at the lake, got checked in, and was on the road by 7:30. The weather was overcast and on the cool side, but that was fine with me. I had been hoping for nice cool weather for this ride. The east side of the Oakland hills can really heat up this time of year, and I was hoping to avoid climbing "the bears" in 90 degree heat.

First climb of the morning was up Old Tunnel Road to Skyline. This is my usual route into the Oakland hills, so it was a piece of cake. Up on Skyline (elevation about 1400 ft), the fog was hugging the hills and visibility was very low. Once I started zipping along the Skyline ridge (past first rest stop at Sibley park), I briefly wished I had brought some of my winter gear along. It was cold, people.

From Skyline, the route took us up and over the Oakland hills into Moraga, then a few miles north to Orinda. For the local cyclists: Skyline > Redwood > up Pinehurst > Canyon > Moraga Way. I arrived at the next rest stop, at the intersection of Bear Creek and San Pablo Dam Road, at 10:15am. At this point the folks doing the 50 mile option turned up Wildcat Canyon to climb back into the Oakland/Berkeley Hills. I was doing the extra loop around the reservoirs, so I continued straight down San Pablo Dam Road.

The loop around the San Pablo and Briones Reservoirs is a popular cycling route and is often referred to as "the three bears loop", because there are (at least) three main hills to climb on Bear Creek Road. I usually ride this loop counterclockwise, so this was a little different hitting the climbs in the opposite direction. There were very few cyclists out on the road at this point in the ride. Maybe most riders did the shorter 50 mile option. Losers! At any rate, I was back at the intersection of San Pablo Dam and Bear Creek a little after noon for more snacks and a water refill. At this point I had done about 50 miles and still felt strong.

The route then crossed San Pablo Dam for a climb up Wildcat Canyon to Inspiration Point. I figured this would be the toughest climb of the day for me, being a bit steeper and coming 50 miles into the ride. Luckily the temperature was still comfortable and the road is relatively shaded, so I made it up that climb without any problems. Then I quickly zipped through Tilden to the other side of the hills, overlooking Berkeley. Then it was up Grizzly Peak for the last climb of the day. At this point fatigue was starting to set in, but fortunately Grizzly Peak is a relatively gentle climb. And I knew that once I got to the top, it was going to be all downhill for the last 12 miles back to Lake Merritt. There was one cyclist on this final climb, let's call her "Anna", who had a bit of hard time and came very close to climbing in the SAG car about 1/4 mile shy of the top of the hill. She held on though and made it to the water stop at the top where her Team in Training cohorts were waiting to cheer her on. Good job Anna!

From the top of Grizzly, route back was Skyline > Shepard Canyon > Snake > Mountain > Park, etc. I pulled into the start/finish point just before 3pm. Pretty good ride!

Total distance: 74 miles
Total time in the saddle: 6.5 hours
Total elevation: 6000 feet
Animules: one deer and one wild turkey along Bear Creek Road

Training ride: Bike Against the Odds (45 miles)

2008-08-03T18:16:00.000-07:00

This weekend I did a relatively short training ride for an event I signed up to do on August 23, called the Bike Against the Odds ride. It’s a charity ride to benefit the Breast Cancer Fund and some local cancer support services. Plus it begins and ends in downtown Oakland and pretty much goes all over the Oakland/Berkeley hills where I do so much of my riding. So it seemed silly not to do it.

They have several different routes available, including a full century with 10,000 feet of climbing. That seemed a little much for me, in the middle of the summer, so I’ve opted to do the 72 mile route. For training purposes, I rode the itinerary for the 50 mile route today (the 72 route is the 50 miler with a “bears” loop tacked on).

The weather was nice for climbing today: it was overcast in the morning on the bay side of the hills, so no chance of overheating. Even on the Moraga/Orinda side where it was sunny, the temp was still mild, probably just in the mid 70s.

Riding up Old Tunnel to get to Skyline a guy passed me on a French grey Saluki. I yelled out, “hey it’s a Rivendell”, so he slowed down a bit and we chatted a bit about bikes. I noted that it was a different color combination from what I had seen before, and he said they had this frame in his size and offered a custom paint job for a big discount. I wonder if this is because they’re trying to get rid of inventory as they phase out the Saluki model? At any rate, it was a lovely bike, he had gotten the bar end friction shifters, and had put a 34 teeth cassette on for lots of low gears. That’s what I’m talking about.

After that initial climb up Old Tunnel (which I do all the time so it’s no biggie), the next climbs were a short climb up Redwood/Pinehurst (easy), a very gentle incline from Moraga to Orinda, a climb up Wildcat Canyon (kinda hard), and then a pretty easy climb up Grizzly Peak to return to Skyline. That climb up Wildcat is the only one that’s challenging, and the steeper parts are in the first mile. After that it evens out. The test next weekend will be to tack on the bears loop to this ride. I really don’t like the ride up the bears that much; there’s hardly any traffic but it’s really exposed and can get really warm in the heat of the day. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for fog on the day of the event.

Animules: deer, in Tilden Park
Rivendell sightings: 1 Saluki, custom paint
Total Distance: 45 miles
Elevation gain: about 4000 feet
Time in the Saddle: 4 hours 20 minutes

July mileage stats

2008-08-03T18:11:00.001-07:00

I almost forgot to post my monthly stats!

Total mileage for July: 408
Hours in the saddle: 40 hours
Total climbing: about 20,000 feet

Rawk on.

deposit on new Dahon Tournado

2008-07-27T20:56:00.000-07:00

Today I put a 50% deposit down on a new size 52 Dahon Tournado. Dahon told my local bike shop that they should have it by mid-August, so we'll see if that holds. I've been waiting for this bike to be available since early spring. But I want it *now* damn it.

It's so pretty!

I did talk to my bike shop about switching in a different cassette. The Tournado comes with a 9 speed 11-26 cassette, which just doesn't provide the low gears that I'd like in a touring bike. If I get a different cassette, I'll also need to switch out the rear derailleur. The Shimano Ultegra derailleur will only work with a maximum of 27 teeth on the cassette, so if I want a 32 or 34 granny gear, I'll have to get a different derailleur.

Death Ride pics

2008-07-14T21:09:00.000-07:00

Most of these were taken with my cell phone, so the quality isn't that high. But it's enough to give you a little flavor for the ride.

Tahoe Death Ride

Death Ride Report (2 passes)

2008-07-13T18:52:00.000-07:00

As late as Friday evening I wasn’t sure that I was even going to attempt the Death Ride, the event that I had been training for since, like, December. With all of the forest fires blazing in Northern California, the air quality in the Tahoe basin was terrible. When we arrived on Wednesday evening, there was actually ash raining down. Yuck. In nearby Reno, they were getting ready to declare a stage 2 air quality alert, which means that everyone is advised to stay indoors. So, in summary, not exactly the best conditions for an extreme endurance event. Even Cycling Boss was thinking about skipping the whole thing (or maybe just doing one or two passes at the most).

Check it out: last year when I was in Tahoe for a week, I took this shot from the bike path along the southern part of the lake. On Thursday while I was out riding I stopped in the same spot and took a shot of the lake. That’s how bad it was.


July 2008		July 2007

Anyway, I decided to go ahead and head out to Markleeville for the event on Saturday and just play it by ear. If it was too smoky to ride, I’d just turn around and head back. So Saturday morning I was up at 4:30, in the car by 5, and out near the ride start by 5:45. By some meteorological miracle, the air was relatively clear of smoke! I parked by the side of the road where lots of other riders were parking and unpacking their gear. I didn’t realize until later I was actually about 2 miles from the start at Turtle Rock park, and that there were plenty of spots along the road a bit closer. Oh well.

It was late enough (just after 6am) that I didn’t need my bike lights, but it was still chilly out. I had my vest and arm warmers, but going downhill into Markleeville (elevation 5500 feet), I briefly wished I had my leg warmers and full-finger gloves. Luckily I quickly warmed up and ended up shedding the vest and arms about a quarter of the way up Monitor.

Beginning the ascent up Monitor in the early daylight was really beautiful. The road was closed to auto traffic so it was just us cyclists. The road outside of Markleeville follows a nice alpine stream (Carson River, apparently) for a couple of miles before the turnoff for the pass. The first few miles of the climb are comfortably graded, and I thought, what a lovely way to spend the early morning, out here in the middle of the Sierras climbing away! Then it started to get steep. About a quarter of the way up there are patches of 9.2%, 9.5%, and 10.3% (according to the race elevation map). These steeper sections really slowed me down, and I felt like I was crawling up the mountain. I did manage to get some nice photos of this stretch, just using the ol’ cell phone. When I figure out how to get them out of the phone I’ll post them. It’s a very scenic ride, especially before the heat of the day kicks in. Monitor pass is an arid high desert landscape, with some amazing vistas of the surrounding sierras. I’m not that familiar with the geography, but I imagine we were able to see a good number of the high sierra peaks from this vantage point. After a couple of more moderate sections (7.3, 7.5%) I suddenly emerged at the summit rest stop where a volunteer placed my first pass sticker on my rider bib (elevation 8314 feet). It came up so suddenly that I didn’t think it was the summit at first. I was all, Wait, is this the top of Monitor? The volunteer looked at me like, Duh. I dunno, maybe it was the thin air. Anyway, I continued on just a half mile or so past the summit, because Cycling Boss had said that there was a nice view down the other side into Nevada. I rounded the base of a hill and sure enough, there was a nice vista of the Nevada side of Monitor. There were also hundreds of Death Ride cyclists climbing up the back side (pass 2). While I was taking a picture with my camera, one guy yelled out, "Call my mom! Tell her I need help!" Heh.

Back at the Monitor summit rest stop, I overheard a cyclist talking to the search and rescue helicopter pilot. I guess because it’s so remote, they have the helicopter available onsite in case they need to take someone off the hospital. The pilot was explaining all this and then added, "They don’t let us enter the race though. That wouldn’t be fair to the cyclists." Ah, everyone’s a comedian at high altitude!

My favorite part was the descent down Monitor, which is long (almost 10 miles) with good sight lines, good road surface, and very few technical turns. It was a BLAST going down this mountain at 40 mph.

Back down at the base of Monitor pass (at the 89 and 4 junction), we all headed south on 4 toward Ebbetts. The first couple miles of Ebbetts were nice and gentle, just meandering along the east fork of the Carson River. We had a quick rest stop that featured both a bag pipe player and a Hawaiian theme (shoutout?), and then shortly after the real climbing began. Ebbetts was… tough. There were a couple sections of 10% and at least one 12%, and the whole climb just seemed relentless. However it was absolutely gorgeous, much more wooded that Monitor pass, with great vistas from the ridge. It reminded me a lot of Yosemite. The last few miles I had to stop for quick beathers every 2 miles or so, just to get my heart rate down and my breathing leveled out. However I didn’t need to walk my bike at any point, which is saying something because there were a lot of folks walking up Ebbetts. It may be the most challenging climb I’ve ever done; it’s probably almost on my top 5 list of beautiful rides. And to be able to do it with the road closed to car traffic was pretty awesome. Anyway, I finally made it up to the summit at 12:45 pm, got my second sticker, and decided that there was no way I doing the third pass (down the backside of Ebbetts and back up). I was thinking that I could probably grind it out, but I didn’t think I could then make it back the remaining 12 miles to Turtle Rock. Ultimately I think this was the right decision, because the final little climb between Markleeville and my car almost did me in. If I had attempted the third pass, I would have had to get the helicopter to lift me back to my car.

So, all in all, a good ride and a decent result, although I really wanted to complete three passes. Next year, if I do it again, I’m sure I can do 3 and probably even 4 passes if I train just a little more. I’m also thinking about parking closer to Markleeville to avoid that last little hill that’s just no fun at all.

Next.. prep rides in Tahoe for the Death Ride

Total Distance: 62 miles, 2 passes (Monitor 1 and Ebbetts 1)
Total Elevation gain: 6238 feet
Time in the saddle: 7 hours
Elevation map: Death Ride elevation map
Rivendell sightings: one Atlantis

Adirondacks Day 3

2008-07-08T20:12:00.000-07:00

On day 3 of the Adirondack tour, we decided to head up the 28N towards the town of Newcomb, advertised as the “heart of the Adirondacks”. I figured it was about 27 miles up to Newcomb, supposedly mostly uphill, so then we could turn around and cruise back downhill to North Creek. In fact, the first few miles out of North Creek were gradually uphill, then just outside the hamlet of Minerva (weird town, I don’t recommend it) is one steeper climb of about a mile or so. After that, we were back into rolling terrain. The landscape up in this area was a bit different than what we had experienced on the previous days. It felt more like what I associate with alpine lake regions, where the foliage is a bit more sparse and you see more pine trees. It just feels more like being in the mountains. Anyway, the 28N was a nice road… very little traffic and a wide shoulder.

Once we got to Newcomb, we stopped briefly at a lovely picnic area with nice vistas of pretty much all the surrounding mountains. Really nice spot, and one of the best public restrooms I’ve ever seen! At this point it occurred to me that if my cycling buddies wanted to continue forward and do the full loop back to North Creek (about 80 miles) they could do that and I could just cruise back on the 28N. I could tell J was dying to do the full loop, and indeed both R and J ended up riding the reverse “Teddy’s Trail” loop. I don’t think J would have been able to face our innkeeper the next morning if he hadn’t done the full 80 mile ride. For my part, I was more worried about bruising my cycling ass than my cycling pride, so I was more than happy to return back the way I came.

But before parting ways for the day, we continued on into the “town” of Newcomb and stopped at a very strange general store run by, judging by appearances, some siblings or cousins who had married and bred. I don’t mean to sound like a city snob, and all the folks in our little North Creek hamlet were terrific, but the people at this store in Newcomb were weird. I don’t think any of us even considered eating at their “diner” but instead just grabbed some snacks and hit the road. Wow. Oh, we also passed what was billed as the “source of the Hudson River”, which was pretty cool.

Heading back down the 28N to North Creek was actually a fair amount of work. I knew that once I hit the steep hill (now a descent) prior to Minerva, it would be pretty much downhill the whole way. But the 15 miles or so between Newcomb and Minerva were rolling terrain, with quite a few ascents. At this point, during the heat of the day, in my granny gear climbing up the hills, I started attracting some of my insect friends trying to tag along for the ride. I actually had two flies bite me through my cycling gloves, which is pretty fucking ballsy. Unfortunately for them, I carry repellant, and am mighty liberal with the deet. After a quick dousing, my flying friends stayed away for the rest of the ride. Woohoo!

Arriving back in North Creek around 4pm, I didn’t expect R and J to return before 6 at the earliest, so I figured it was a good opportunity to do some souvenir shopping. Heading over to the North Creek Deli and Marketplace, a little bluegrass band was set up out front playing Woody Guthrie songs to a small group of folks. Our innkeeper had told us about this group, and had mentioned that the lead singer was transitioning (check) and that they had an older gentleman playing spoons (check). There’s nothing like being in a tiny little town out in the middle of nowhere with a bluegrass band standing in front of an old general store singing This Land is Your Land. Actually, the only thing that would be more appropriate would be if they sang some Pete Seeger. Yeah.

Anyhoodle, my peeps ended up getting back from their full 80 mile loop by 5:30. That’s hard core. Mad props to those guys for kicking some serious cycling ass in the Adirondacks.

More later on the local flavor…

Adirondacks Tour (3 days, 150 miles)

2008-07-07T22:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I returned from a wonderful bicycling tour in the Gore Mountain region of the southern Adirondacks. This was my first trip to this beautiful part of upstate New York, and it proved to be an ideal location for cycling. We arrived at base camp (Goose Pond Inn B&B in North Creek) late on Wednesday night and didn’t even bother to unpack our gear before crashing out for the night. I guess we were all a little beat, because we all slept right through breakfast the next morning, served promptly between zero-eight-hundred and zero-nine-hundred hours. I guess when they say bed and breakfast, they mean it. After that initial faux pas, we fell in line with the regime and got on famously with the innkeepers. Seriously though, it’s a great B&B in a great location with clean rooms and a very nice breakfast each morning. For a very affordable price. Thumbs up from the rambler. If you visit, tell ‘em Miss California sent you.

The Machine: On this trip J was kind enough to loan me his Rivendell Saluki, undoubtedly the most valuable bicycle I’ve ever had the pleasure to ride on a multi-day tour. It struck me as I was describing the bike to Crazy Cycling Boss that the setup on this thing is pretty unusual, at least from the perspective of folks riding aluminum and carbon. The Rivendell (“Jean-Pierre”) is an old-school steel frame touring bike that features a mustache handlebar with bar end friction shifters, fat 650 tires, and a newish Brooks saddle that I had a hand (so to speak) in breaking in over the course of the trip. I had a bit of trouble with the saddle at the end of each day, but all in all a very classy ride.

The Routes:
Day 1: The Lakes of Chester About 38 miles and 2600 feet of climbing.
Our first day out we all wanted to do a relatively easy ride to get a feel for the terrain, so we decided on the “lakes of Chester” loop, which goes north through Olmsteadville, over through Pottersville, past Loon Lake and Friends Lake, then back up to North Creek. Although it rained a bit this day, it was a nice introduction to the region, which is marked by small quaint hamlets (general store, church, cemetery), small lakes, and green forest. In some ways it reminded me of upper Michigan where I had visited as a wee one.

Day 2: North Creek-Schroon Lake 55 miles, 3800 feet of climbing.
We had talked about doing a couple of the longer routes outlined in the touring book, but after a day on the road I didn’t feel like I could do 80 miles with my ass in Jean-Pierre’s saddle. So we managed to piece together two other routes into a nice 55 miler out to Schroon Lake and back. The weather on this second day (July 4th) was pretty much perfect: warm, sunny, bright blue sky, very low humidity. We started out through quiet backroads to arrive at the southern end of Schroon Lake. This is one of those quintessential lake resort towns that are probably overrun with tourists most of the year, and yet you can’t really resist its charm. We stopped in the downtown area for a quick rest and a snack, and were lucky enough to catch some of the 4th of July entertainment, which consisted of a terrible choir performing in a very picturesque waterfront gazebo. Continuing north we rounded the lake and returned to quiet country roads. This portion of the route was really beautiful, and took us through marshlands and forest, with occasional views of the lake. The only downside here was the introduction of bugs and my “shock and awe” deet-based response. I hate using chemicals, but I hate bugs even more, so there you go.

Along the eastern shore of the lake, we stopped by the general store in the town of Adirondack. It seemed like a bit of a zoo inside, so we only stocked up on minimal supplies before hitting the road again. Once we completed the loop around Schroon Lake, it was a relatively quick ride down route 9, to route 8, then to route 28 back to North Creek. A really lovely ride.

Next.. day 3 and local Adirondack flavor.

Mt. Tam x2.5 (50 miles)

2008-06-29T08:02:00.000-07:00

This was to be my weekend of riding up Diablo three times, but the air quality has been so crappy (due to all the forest fires), that I had to scrap that idea and head to the coast. The air on the coast wasn’t perfect, but it had the best particle reading in the bay area. And it was probably still better than your average day in southern California.

On my recent rides up Tam, I’ve been taking the northern approach via Fairfax. It’s longer and a bit more challenging, but it doesn’t have the traffic of Panoramic Highway. However for this ride, I was looking for efficiency, so I ended up taking the route through Mill Valley and Panoramic that I had followed on my first ride up to the ranger’s station last year. Actually that was almost a year ago to the day.. how fitting! Anyway, the ride up to Pan Toll station wasn’t nearly as bad as I remembered it. In fact there was a nice flat stretch in the middle where I was able to accelerate quite a bit. It probably helped that it was overcast and chilly, so no chance of overheating or dehydrating. From the station I headed up to the summit (west peak on this first pass) and then turned around to descend down to Stinson Beach.

From Stinson, it’s a much shorter approach to get to the summit: 3.7 miles to the station, 1.5 to the junction with the ridge, and then 3 miles to the visitors center on the east peak. A construction crew was up there working on some expansion to the center, and the snack bar was closed (!) but there were hordes of cyclists up there. Looked like it might have been a couple of club rides.

For the third and final pass, I again descended down to Stinson and then climbed back to the ranger station. I really started feeling fatigued on this final climb and it took all my energy to get through it. For the first time in a long time, I was actually sore after this ride. Somehow I managed to work my inner thigh muscles to the point that they were stiff and sore after the drive home. I suspect that on that final climb, I wasn’t keeping my knees lined up correctly and was probably swinging my legs out a bit to find some extra power.

For those of you keeping score at home, the three climbs today measured:
12.5 miles, 2500 feet (west peak)
8.3 miles, 2540 feet (east peak)
3.7 miles, 1400 feet (to Pan Toll ranger’s station)

The three passes I want to complete for the Death Ride are:
Front side of Monitor: 13.3 miles, 2700 feet
Front side of Ebbetts: 10.4 miles, 2700 feet
Back side of Ebbetts: 4.8 miles, 1500 feet

So I came very close today to the real elevation gain I’ll be seeing in 2 weeks. It was a perfect training ride, and I’m as ready as I’ll ever be for the real thing.

Animules: One deer crossing Panoramic Highway
Total Distance: 50 miles
Elevation gain: about 7000 feet
Time in the Saddle: 5 hours 45 minutes

Upcoming Tour in the Adirondacks – routes

2008-06-24T20:23:00.001-07:00

Have I mentioned that I’m going to the Adirondacks the first week of July for some cycling? I may not have, since R did pretty much all the planning for the trip (thanks R!). Even though all I really have to do is show up, I feel compelled to do some amount of analysis of the routes. Some people like to be surprised, they enjoy spontaneity and the unknown. Not me; I like to know what I’m getting myself into. So, I ended up plotting a few of the possible routes using Bikely.com. All these routes are based on the book 25 Bicycle Tours in the Adirondacks.

North Creek vicinity (our base camp, or base B&B rather):

The Lakes of Chester
About 38 miles and 2600 feet of climbing.

Teddy’s Trail
One of the two longer routes at about 80 miles and about 5000 ft (?) of climbing. Bikely.com is crapping out on the elevation profile at the moment for this one.

Reverse Speculator
This route was already plotted on bikely. It’s the same as the “Speculator” route from the book, but in the reverse direction. 75 miles and 4100 feet of climbing (seems like hardly any elevation gain at all for that long of a ride).

Minerva-Olmstedville
Only 17 miles and about 1500 feet, but looks like lots of rollers from the elevation profile.

Lake George vicinity

Bolton Landing
30 miles, 2400 feet of climbing. Seems like a nice relatively relaxing tour.

Lake Luzerne
38 miles, 2750 feet of climbing.

Mt Tam-Stinson Ride (49 miles)

2008-06-22T18:28:00.000-07:00

Today’s ride combined the route for the Mt Tam loop with a little extra descent to, and climb back up from, Stinson Beach. Our little heat wave finally broke today, so the weather was perfect: sunny and warm but comfortable. Even so, remembering my water woes last time, I brought my camelback and two water bottles. I wasn’t taking any chances; and in fact I felt like I did a much better job hydrating this time around.

On this pass through Fairfax, I skipped the weird coffee shop with the bad live music, although as I was cruising by, I caught this guy working on a mural on the side of the building. He was making quick work of it too, with Pink Floyd or something similar blaring from his stereo.

The approach past Alpine Lake Dam and on up to Ridgecrest Road felt a little easier this time, but I still struggled mightily on Ridgecrest. This stretch is only about 4 miles and only gains about 600 feet, but it’s all steep rollers, which are my least favorite type of hill. I was huffing and puffing along when a couple of guys passed me, one saying to me, “Do your friends know you’re out here climbing mountains? They must think you’re crazy!”. Heh. Yeah, kinda. I told them I was training for the Death Ride, and it turns out he’s done it like 5 years in a row. He said one year he even did the ride with his wife on a tandem. Took them all day. You know, I have a certain mental image of the kind of ride where a tandem would be fun, and the Death Ride ain’t it. At any rate, I ran my 3 pass plan by him (Monitor, 2 Ebbetts) and he said it was a good plan. He also said the front side of Ebbetts will be the most challenging for me.

From Ridgecrest, the climb up to the summit wasn’t bad at all. I love that they have a snack bar up at the visitors’ center. Nothing like a cold root beer after climbing a mountain.

From the summit, I descended to the ranger station, and then faced a choice: turn left and have quick descent back to Sausalito, or turn right, descend to Stinson Beach and then climb back up. I really needed to get a bit more climbing in, so I chose the Stinson option. This route to Stinson via Panoramic Highway is really lovely, continuing through the woods and then thrusting you out onto the ridge overlooking the Pacific. It would be an awesome descent if it weren’t for the horrid state of the road and the car traffic. I was a little worried about the traffic climbing back up from Stinson, because there’s really no shoulder on this road. There were a few cars, but I guess it was early enough that people were still enjoying the beach. The climb ended up being pretty enjoyable, at about 4 miles and 1500 feet. The cool sea breeze on the ocean side was particularly refreshing. And with that extra climb in, I was able to cruise back to Sausalito feeling like I had put in a good day’s work.

Next weekend will be the final official training ride before the Adirondacks trip and the Death Ride following that. So on Saturday, my goal is to do at least 50 miles and 6500 feet of climbing.

Total Distance: 49 miles
Animules: several deer in Mill Valley
Elevation gain: about 5500 feet
Time in the Saddle: 5 hours 17 minutes

Elevation profile (from Klimb software):

Diablo junction x3 – almost (40 miles)

2008-06-15T19:54:00.000-07:00

And so we continue the journey toward becoming one of those weirdos who talks not about riding up Diablo but rather about how many times they rode up Diablo. Today, for me, the answer was 2 and two-thirds.

I had set my alarm for 6am this morning, but ended up turning it off and going back to sleep for another hour. I think I fell a bit behind on my R&R, due mostly to stress at work, so I probably really needed that extra hour. However the result was that I didn’t get out to Walnut Creek until about 9am. A bit of a late start.

The first climb was up the north side to the junction. I was feeling a bit sluggish on this first climb, and was disappointed that I wasn’t able to best my last time of 63 minutes. I logged 64.5 minutes which isn’t bad, but I really want to crack an hour before the end of the month.

From the junction I cruised down the south side to the gate, turned around, and then headed back up. Then from the junction, I descended the north side, turned around, and began climbing again, with the goal of reaching the junction for the third time but knowing that it might not happen. I didn’t feel too fatigued, but by this point it was 12:30 and the air temperature was hovering above 80 degrees… and it felt really hot. The north approach has some brief patches of shade, but it’s pretty exposed. I got about two-thirds of the way up, just before the switchbacks begin, and decided to call it a day. I could have gritted my teeth and made it up to the junction (about another 2 miles) but didn’t feel like killing myself for it. I’ve still got a month left before the Death Ride, and I’m on track as far as my training is concerned. Next weekend I’ll start earlier, do the junction 3 times, and maybe throw in a jaunt up to the summit. Who knows?

For those of you keeping score at home, the three climbs today measured:
7.8 miles, 2000 feet (North Gate)
5.6 miles, 1500 feet (South Gate)
5 miles, 1400 feet (North Gate to the switchbacks)

The three passes I want to complete for the Death Ride are:
Front side of Monitor: 13.3 miles, 2700 feet
Front side of Ebbetts: 10.4 miles, 2700 feet
Back side of Ebbetts: 4.8 miles, 1500 feet

Speaking of the Death Ride, I got my jersey and socks in the mail this week, so I wore them on today’s training ride. I don’t know if that goes against jersey etiquette (sporting the apparel before the event) but it was a good motivator. I had an obligation to live up to the skeleton logo on my back. I got several comments from passing cyclists, and one thumbs up from a motorist. Heh.

Animules: Along the side of the road on North Gate I saw the same young coyote. Coulda been his twin brother.
Total Distance: 40 miles
Elevation gain: 5200 feet
Time in the Saddle: 4 hours 15 minutes

Diablo ranger station x2 (38 miles)

2008-06-08T11:17:00.000-07:00

I headed out to Walnut Creek early Saturday morning to climb up the north side of Diablo and try to intersect with Cycling Boss and his crew. They had gotten an extra early start that morning, with the plan of going up North Gate then down South Gate, then back up to the junction. By the time I got up to the junction around 9:30, they were ready to descend back down the north side, turn around, and then come back up to the junction. So my timing was perfect for a second climb.

Incidentally, on this ride up to the junction I logged my best time yet, managing to shave 3 minutes off my previous best time of 66 minutes from the gate to the junction.

My second climb up was a much slower affair, and I really felt it on the steep sections. I certainly didn't set any records the second time up, but I was only 4 minutes slower.. not too bad all things considered. The next step will be to integrate a climb up South Gate into this route. That will get me pretty close to total elevation for my 3-pass Death Ride.

Miles: 38
Total elevation gain: about 4000 feet
Time in the saddle: 3 hours 40 minutes

May mileage stats

2008-05-31T13:15:00.000-07:00

Before getting to the mileage totals: This morning I rode up to the Diablo junction with Cycling Boss From Work.. he chatted the whole the ride up while I huffed and puffed a bit. Obviously he was going much much slower than his usual pace, but I managed to beat my own personal best time to the junction by 1 minute. Probably helps quite a bit to ride with someone faster, so I have to push myself a bit. He thinks if I train right, I can do all 5 Death Ride passes next year. We'll see.

This month I started supplementing my regular weekend rides with two evening rides a week, so I was able to increase my mileage and my total elevation gain. This is only the second time I've logged more than 500 miles in a month, and the last time was due primarily to logging 250 miles on my California coast tour.

I also think the extra climbing is starting to pay off; I'm feeling more comfortable and confident on my regular climbs up into the Oakland hills and up Diablo. I'm feeling pretty good about being able to do my 3 Death Ride passes in July.

Total mileage: 503
Total time in the saddle: 46.9 hours
Total climbing: 31,430 feet

Grizzly Peak-Pinehurst-Chabot ride (52 miles)

2008-05-26T19:22:00.000-07:00

This ride is very similar to the Grizzly Peak Pinehurst loop, except instead of returning to Rockridge after the major climb up Pinehurst, you take a left on Skyline and cruise over to Redwood which takes you through Redwood Regional Park (natch) and on into Chabot Regional Park. After a quick lunch stop at Luccas Italian Deli in Castro Valley, the route continues on alongside Lake Chabot and drops down to San Leandro BART.

We’ve had some unseasonably cool weather the past few days, and the morning started off overcast and chilly. The weather report predicted clearing by noon, so I only took minimal cold weather gear.. jacket, full fingered gloves, and my headband. By the time I got over the Oakland Hills to meet kc at Orinda BART, I couldn’t feel my toes at all. In fact the weather never really warmed up or cleared until after I returned home. Annoying.

After riding up Diablo twice on Sunday, my legs definitely felt sluggish on the first climb up Old Tunnel. At one point I actually dismounted to make sure there wasn’t something dragging against my back wheel. Nope, that was just me going really slow. But once I warmed up I felt fine, and the rest of the hills were very manageable.

I felt a little bad because I had told kc that there were basically two climbs on this ride: Pinehurst (my steep nemesis climb) and a more gradual climb up Redwood. But at a couple of other points on the ride, kc asked me, “Is this one of the two climbs?” and I realized that a couple of these gradual rises that I don’t really count as “climbs” per se still count for something to a recreational cyclist. So I may need to provide more full disclosure on my ride routes. On the other hand I think if I sent him the elevation profile for a route beforehand, he’d take one look at all those little hills and never ride with me again.

Total Distance: 52 miles
Elevation gain: 4200 feet
Time in the Saddle: 5 hours 13 minutes

Diablo ranger station x2 (about 40 miles)

2008-05-25T21:23:00.000-07:00

I had originally planned to go camping this weekend, but the trip ended up getting canceled due to forest fires and rain. I know it seems strange to have both of those things at once, but there you go. Oh well, more time for cycling.

This Sunday’s ride was a double trip up to the Mt Diablo ranger station: from Walnut Creek I climbed up North Gate road, descended South Gate, and then climbed back up South Gate to the station. Although the total mileage and elevation gain was about the same as just going once up to the summit, psychologically it was important for my Death Ride training to be able to climb up a mountain twice. Actually I really need to be able to climb up Diablo 3 times so that I’m totally prepared to do 3 passes on the Death Ride, but 2 is a good start.

I had my best ride up North Gate yet. It took me about the same time as usual, but I felt more relaxed than ever, comfortable in the pace I set. Usually I stop for a breather after the first steep section (a little over a third of the way up) and then again before the switchbacks, but today I cruised straight through. I hadn’t gone up South Gate since the early spring, and I was surprised how much easier it seemed compared to North Gate.

As far as Death Ride prep goes, the two climbs today measured:
7.8 miles, 2000 feet (North Gate)
6.8 miles, 1630 feet (South Gate)

The three passes I want to complete in July are:
Front side of Monitor: 13.3 miles, 2700 feet
Front side of Ebbetts: 10.4 miles, 2700 feet
Back side of Ebbetts: 4.8 miles, 1500 feet

So, what I really need to do is go up North Gate to Juniper (10 miles, 2700 feet), come back down, do that same climb again, come back down, and then go up South Gate to the ranger station. That will be fun.

Animules: Along the side of the road on North Gate I saw what I think was a young coyote.
Total Distance: 38 miles
Elevation gain: 4000 feet
Time in the Saddle: 4 hours

Mt Tam Loop (42 miles)

2008-05-18T18:08:00.000-07:00

This weekend I doubled up and went riding on both Saturday and Sunday, and finally managed to conquer my remaining mountain summit in the bay area: Mt Tam. But first, on Saturday, I joined Cycling Boss from Work and his buddies for the tail end of their ride, which took us along Skyline to Redwood, and up the southern portion of Pinehurst. From there they continued on to Moraga and Lafayette, while I climbed up the north part of Pinehurst Road to drop back down to Oakland. This was my first time riding with these guys, and I was a little apprehensive since they are all pretty hard core, CBW in particular. This is the guy who rides up Diablo multiple times in a single outing, does double centuries, does the *extra* bonus pass in the Death Ride, etc. Obviously I couldn’t keep up with him, but in general I held my own with the other guys. Anyway, the Saturday ride ended up being 30 miles with 3000 feet of climbing.

For my Sunday ride I decided to finally try for the summit of Mt Tamalpais. My four readers will recall that there are three main peaks in the bay area: Mt Diablo in the east bay, Mt Hamilton in the south bay, and Mt Tam in Marin. One of my cycling goals this year was to get to the summit of all three. I did Hamilton in the fall, and have made it up Diablo several times this winter and spring. Last summer, I inadvertently rode up to the ranger’s station of Tam while doing the Stinson Beach-Muir Woods loop, but that was my last attempt.

Of the three peaks, Mt Hamilton is the highest, at about 4200 feet, but arguably the easiest because it’s a very long, gentle grade for almost the entire climb. Diablo’s summit is at about 3800 feet, and I think conventional wisdom is that it’s the tougher climb compared to Mt Tam, with its highest points at about 2600 feet. However, I personally think Mt Tam is a bit more challenging because there are more steep sections of climbing, and both north and south approaches to the summit road are unevenly graded, so it’s hard for me to find a good climbing rhythm. So from a pure climbing perspective, I still prefer my own mountain here in the east bay, but Tam and the surrounding alpine woods win out in the scenery category.

For this ride I followed the Velogirls routesheet, but instead of riding across the Golden Gate bridge I started in Sausalito to make this a 40+ mile loop rather than a 60+ mile loop. From Sausalito, the route follows the Nicasio route for the first ten miles, up the hill to Corte Madera, then through some really charming towns in Marin (downtown Larkspur, Ross, San Anselmo, and Fairfax). In Fairfax, all the cyclists stop at a local coffee shop called the Fairfax Coffee Roastery. I had a good espresso, but they had some random live music (at 9:30 am??) and the guy kept messing up the lyrics to all the songs. And they weren’t new songs, they were all Elton John and James Taylor songs. Everybody knows the lyrics to those old songs, except this guy playing guitar at the Fairfax Coffee Roastery. Go figure.

From Fairfax, instead of heading up Sir Francis Drake towards Nicasio, you head south on Bolinas, basically approaching Mt Tam from the north side. I did prefer this approach to the southern route (Panoramic Highway) because there was very little car traffic. In fact, for most of this stretch I heard nothing but birds and crickets in the forest. I think most of the people heading up to the Mt Tam trails or over to the coast take Panoramic Highway rather than the longer, meandering Fairfax-Bolinas route, so you can feel like you’re miles away from civilization on this road. The other nice thing about the road is that it passes by Alpine Lake and the Alpine Dam Bridge, so the scenery is very nice… lots of pine trees surrounding the lake. It’s reminiscent of some of the smaller alpine lakes in the Sierras, near Lake Tahoe, just without the nice clear water. Still, very pretty.

From the Alpine Lake dam up to the ridge at (aptly named) Ridgecrest Road is a gain of about 900 feet in about 2.5 miles, with some pretty steep sections and many switchbacks. I found this part of the ride pretty challenging, but at least it was almost entirely shaded by the surrounding forest. It would be a killer climb if totally exposed.

Once I got up to Ridgecrest, I started hitting lots of trailhead parking lots but absolutely no water fountains. I remembered that I experienced this on my Muir Woods ride too; with all the hiking trails in the Mt Tam area (in the Mt Tam watershed no less!), you’d think they’d have more drinking fountains, but you’d be wrong. As a result, by the time I got to the turnoff to start ascending the summit, I had drained my two water bottles and had no fluids left. One guy helpfully suggested that there were drinking fountains at the visitor center up at the summit (great!) but another cyclist came to my rescue and gave me some of his water. My savior! He noted that it had some sports mix in it, so I would feel like “Lance Armstrong” going up the hill.

So, up I went. According to this new mapping shareware I downloaded, the first section of the summit climb covers 519 feet in 1.4 miles, for a 7% grade. I didn’t find this section that difficult at all (must have been the “sports mix”!). What’s interesting about Mt Tam is that it really has a couple of peaks: the west peak and the east peak. They’re both about 2600 feet, but there’s a dip in between them, so it’s like a false summit with a kick. But I finally did make it to the east peak, where I drank about 40 oz of water and a root beer. That tasted mighty good. They have a nice little visitor center with picnic tables, snack bar, trails, and various lookout points.

The worst thing about the multiple peak situation is that you have to climb back up on your descent from the summit. It’s cruel and painful, with one section of 6.3% grade and another at 7.8%. But after that, it was literally all downhill to Sausalito.

Total Distance: 42 miles
Animules: a jack rabbit up near the summit
Elevation gain: 4000 feet
Time in the Saddle: 4 hours 23 minutes (wow, that’s pretty slow)

April mileage stats

2008-05-04T19:54:00.000-07:00

Last month I speculated that I would easily log 400 miles in April. In fact I logged 465 miles, 38.3 hours, and over 23,000 feet of climbing. Not bad for mid-spring. May should be a 500+ mile month, when I'll be in full Death Ride training. Should be fun!

Wine Country Century (100 miles)

2008-05-04T19:48:00.000-07:00

This Saturday was the Santa Rosa Wine Country Century, a really gorgeous ride that manages to capture most of the flavors of Sonoma wine country.. quaint towns, vineyards, rolling hills, redwood forests, the Russian river valley, etc. This is the second year in a row I’ve tackled the century route (I did the metric a few years back) and it remains one of my favorite rides. This year I definitely felt stronger than last year, when I felt so relieved when I crossed the finish line that I actually had tears in my eyes. It’s a relatively flat ride for a century, about 3500 feet of climbing, but it’s still challenging enough to feel like a real accomplishment. Next year I’d really like to do the double metric route, their 120 mile option that mostly follows the century route but includes a loop out to the coast at Bodega bay.

I traveled up to Santa Rosa on Friday night and stayed at the Fountaingrove Inn, just 2 miles south of the ride start. Parking at the ride start is a bit of a pain, so it’s nice to be able to ride there directly from the hotel. Side note: this was my first stay at the Fountaingrove Inn, and I was quite pleased. It’s a nice low-key upscale hotel, and the room was really well insulated. Even though I was right next to the lobby, I didn’t hear a thing all night and was able to get a great night’s sleep.

Saturday morning I left the hotel just after 6:30 and was at the official route start by 6:45. The first 20 miles of the route are really flat and easy, and really the only part of the ride where I’m able to take advantage of the pseudo-peleton effect. That is, I can tag along with big groups of riders and go at a very comfortable 20 mph pace before the first climb of the day. While riding with one group I chatted with a guy from Alameda who was doing the Wine Country Century 100 mile route and then, the following day, doing the Grizzly Peak century back in Berkeley. That’s what we call hard core.

The first hill of the day was on Graton Road, a nice steady, easy climb. After Graton there’s a quick decent through forested river valley to the first rest stop in Monte Rio, at mile 26. I had wanted to be at Monte Rio by 9:15, but I actually pulled in at 8:37! So I really managed to cover a bit of ground that first leg.

The Wine Country Century has some of the best rest stops, with lots of great food, both hot and cold. Something that they had this year that I thought was brilliant were banana slices with a spoonful of peanut butter and an M&M on top. Simple, but really, really good. Everyone was crowding around this guy constructing the PB&Bs, and he couldn’t make them fast enough.

The next segment of the ride, from Monte Rio to the Wohler Bridge rest stop (mile 48.5), passes through the Russian river community of Guerneville and then snakes through back roads to head back towards Santa Rosa. For the most part this is rolling terrain, although there are two short steep climbs here. The worst is on Green Valley Road, where I managed to get three quarters up by zig-zagging across the road. When that became impossible (too many cyclists, a car or two), I had to stop and walk the bike the rest of the way. I had to do this last year, too, but at least this year I got much farther up before having to go into my lowest gear. Progress! I was talking to a guy at the top of the hill, and he thought the grade was 14-17%, maybe even 20%. So, I’m not surprised I’ve had to hoof it up that hill; it’s definitely outside of my comfort zone.

I arrived at the Wohler Bridge rest stop at 10:50, having left the first rest stop at 8:50. I covered 22.5 miles in 2 hours, definitely slower than the first segment of the ride, but still a decent pace. I left the rest stop at 11:10, and began heading north through classic wine country terrain: lots of rolling hills, past vineyards, along very poorly paved country roads. Last year this section of the ride killed me, mostly because of steady headwinds. This year there was a very light tailwind, so it was smooth sailing all the way into the lunch stop at Warm Springs Dam at Lake Sonoma (mile 70). At the lunch stop the ride organizers build delicious made-to-order sandwiches; I had turkey with avocado on a whole wheat roll. Perfect! I couldn’t believe how great I felt at the lunch stop, and briefly wondered why I hadn’t tried for the double metric route after all.

Naturally once I hit the road again after lunch, I returned to reality and realized that fatigue was starting to set in. Those light tailwinds while heading north became somewhat strong headwinds traveling south for the final 30 miles. In addition, my Terry saddle really started to bother me quite a bit after mile 75 or so. I struggled a little for the final leg, and was quite happy to pass the cowbells at the finish line at 3:50pm. I did feel much stronger than last year, but also glad that I had not done part of the longer 120 mile route.

I do think that if I had not had the saddle pain on the final leg, I would have felt much better those last 30 miles. I’m going to take the brooks saddle from my other bike and try it out on the dolce, to see how it feels on some long rides coming up. Hopefully that will do the trick.

Event begin and end: 6:47am – 3:53pm

Total Distance: 100 miles
Elevation gain: 3500 feet
Time in the Saddle: 7 hours 46 minutes

CFGFC Almost-Century (hilly) 82 miles

2008-04-29T19:38:00.000-07:00

This being the last training weekend before the Wine Country Century, I decided to double up and do a short hilly ride on Saturday and then a longer hilly ride on Sunday. The Saturday ride was just a short jaunt up to the East Bay Hills ridgeline and down through Berkeley.. about 3000 feet of climbing in 20 miles. Sunday I decided to do a hilly version of the CFGFC loop.

The original CFGFC route was designed to be the flattest century possible in the bay area. Since I've developed better climbing legs, I've been thinking about ways to incorporate more climbing into the route. This modified route begins by climbing over the east bay hills (rather than going around them) and incorporates the challenging Palomares Road climb at around mile 60. From Castro Valley the route heads up past Lake Chabot and drops you into San Leandro, at which point you once again realize that it's impossible to avoid riding through the Oakland ghetto. Sigh.

The weather was very pleasant this weekend, with sunny skies and warm temperatues. However, once mid day hit it really started roasting out there. The climb up Palomares was a bit challenging given the heat, but surprisingly I seemed to be fairing better than some of the other cyclists on the road. Maybe all of this training is starting to pay off.

Past Lake Chabot I decided to forgo the additional climbing along the foothills and stick to the flats. Too bad the flats are through some of the worst parts of Oakland. I sped right through the last 15 miles and hopped on BART at Fruitvale station. I didn't feel great, but I could have done a few more miles if pressed. I'd say I'm ready for the century this Saturday.

Total distance: 82 miles
Total elevation gain: about 4000 feet

Nicasio Cheese Factory Loop (80 miles)

2008-04-20T18:50:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I had such a tough ride that I couldn't even muster the energy to blog about it. I did a 72+ mile ride down to Calaveras Road during what turned out to be a record-setting heat wave in the bay area. Temperatures were near 90 after being in the 60s to 70s for the past few weeks, and I ended the ride feeling nauseous and dehydrated.

Since last weekend the temperatures have dropped significantly below normal, so this weekend I was hoping to get some good mileage without the added weather conditions. As it turns out, I ran smack into a wind advisory this weekend, of all things. Just my luck.

This ride is from the Velogirls routesheet library, with the following modifications: my route started at Embarcadero BART station and ended on the return at the Sausalito ferry terminal. So, tacking on 5 miles at the beginning of the ride, but cutting off 5 miles and 300+ feet of climbing at the end.

The ride follows the standard route across the Golden Gate Bridge, through Sausalito, and over the hill in Corte Madera. From here the route takes you north/northwest through some nice little towns in Marin County, then through pasture land and redwood forests up to Nicasio and the Petaluma outskirts. I had ridden some of these roads during my 5 day wine country tour in 2005, but I had forgotten how surprising it is to find yourself deep in a shaded redwood forest all of a sudden, after riding through miles of flat grassland. At those moments it's hard to believe that you're just 30 miles outside of a major urban center; you might as well be hundreds of miles away from anything.

Just north of Nicasio is the Marin French Cheese Factory, also known as the Rouge et Noir cheese factory. (Whether this is in reference to Stendhal, or some veiled commentary on the army and religion, love and death, or fortune of the roulette wheel is unknown. The young girl manning the cash register seemed unlikely to have a strong opinion on the matter). The cheese factory has been in business since 1865 producing French-style cheese in the bay area, and they claim they are the oldest continually operating cheese factory in the U.S.

The 40 miles up to the cheese factory would have been more pleasant had it not been for the sustained headwinds. I found out later that there had been a wind advisory in effect the whole day, with winds from the north-northwest gusting up to 50 mph. Naturally the entire ride up to Nicasio was in the north/northwest direction.

Returning from the cheese factory, the route takes a nice jog along Point Reyes-Petaluma Road, past the Nicasio Reservoir, and then meets up with the Cross Marin Trail. This is a really nice multiuse paved trail that runs along Lagunitas Creek, parallel to Sir Francis Drake Blvd. The path goes through beautiful redwood forest and grassland, then passes through a state park, before intersecting with Sir Francis Drake.

The ride back to Sausalito was smooth sailing, heading south more or less, so the strong wind was at my back. Even taking the ferry back to the city, it was still a long day in the saddle.

Total distance: 78 miles
Total elevation gain: about 5000 feet

Time Trial: Old Tunnel Road

2008-04-09T19:27:00.000-07:00

From now until the Death Ride I plan on riding up Old Tunnel twice a week after work. My goal is to be a climbing machine by July.

I felt strong riding up the hill today, and really pushed myself more than I normally do. In fact I actually felt a little light headed by the time I got to the summit (I also forgot to bring any gels with me, which was dumb). But I managed to shave 5 minutes off my last official time of 46 minutes 30 seconds (back on January 1).

Bike: Specialized Dolce
Actual Ride time: 41 minutes 30 seconds
Total Distance: 5.1 miles

Cinderella metric century (65 miles)

2008-04-06T10:42:00.000-07:00

On Saturday I completed the Cinderella metric century for the third time in as many years. This is a great women-only event sponsored by the Valley Spokesmen bicycle club of Dublin (California, not Ireland). They’ve been putting on this annual ride through Pleasanton and the Livermore Valley for more than 30 years and people really get into the spirit of it. Lots of the cyclists dress up in tutus and tiaras or other costumes. One woman who was riding around my pace the whole day was wearing a Wonder Woman outfit. Good times.

The event begins and ends in Pleasanton, and follows a counter-clockwise loop through the Livermore valley wine country and along the southern foothills of the Diablo/Morgan territory area. It’s a relatively easy route, with only two sections where you have to work: a gradual climb up Cross Road and then a 10 mile stretch of gusty headwinds. But after that section, the final 20 miles are more or less downhill.

The weather in the morning was on the cool side with overcast skies, but I felt good right out of the gates, and only stopped briefly at the first rest stop (at mile 17) to top off my water bottles. I had an early lunch at the main rest stop (mile 30, at 10:40am) and only stopped at the final rest stop for about 5 minutes, so I was able to complete the course rather quickly.

Because the route is pretty easy, I wanted to challenge myself by trying to improve my ride time from last year, which was about 5 hours (actual time in the saddle). I pushed myself a bit on the Cross Road climb and on the headwind section, and figured I was going faster than 75% of the riders on the course without going all out. I clocked my total time in motion at 4 hours and 38 minutes, so I was able to improve on last year’s time quite a bit.

Event begin and end: 8:10am – 1:40pm

Total Distance: 65 miles
Elevation gain: about 1700 feet
Time in the Saddle: 4 hours 38 minutes
Route map (on bikely.com): Cinderella route

March mileage stats

2008-03-31T20:37:00.000-07:00

March was a pretty good month, mileage-wise, as I began gearing up for my spring metric and century. Next month I should easily log over 400 miles.

Total mileage: 314
Total time in the saddle: 28.6 hous
Total climbing: 17500 feet

Diablo via North Gate (35 miles)

2008-03-30T15:11:00.001-07:00

I had originally planned on riding up Mt. Tam today, but the weather wasn't cooperating this morning. It was overcast in marin and the city, and for this ride you really want it to be clear so you can enjoy the vistas from the ridge. Alas it will have to wait until another day. In the meantime, I decided to ride up Mt Diablo again, so I could gather more data for my spreadsheet.

The weather in Walnut Creek and Danville was pleasant, and the hillsides are still blooming with wildflowers. While I felt really good all the way up the mountain, my speed didn't improve at all over my last ride two weeks ago. Maybe I felt more comfortable in my pacing but not to the point of pushing to go faster.

It took me 1 hour and 6 minutes to get from the gate to the junction (6.25 miles, 1860 feet of elevation gain), then another 29 minutes to get to Juniper campground, then 31 minutes to reach the summit. So my average speed for each segment was: 5.6 mph (North Gate), 4.8 mph (to Juniper), and 4.1 mph (to the summit). Still slow as hell, but it seems to be getting a bit easier each time.

At the junction, coming back down from the summit, I talked to a guy who was wearing a Death Ride jersey. He said that Monitor pass (the first pass on the Death Ride) was comparable to going up North Gate, but that Ebbetts is more challenging. I asked him if he thought it was a good idea to train at high altitudes, and he said that it doesn't do any good unless you stay at that altitude for the duration. If you go up and train two weeks before the event, but come back down to sea level, then you lose the acclimation. Interesting. I had been contemplating a weekend trip up to Tahoe to get some altitude training in, but maybe it's not worth it.

His other advice for Death Ride preparation was: "climb, climb, climb". Well, duh.

Total Distance: 35 miles
Elevation gain: 4000 feet
Time in the Saddle: 3.5 hours

Three Bears - moderate (47 miles)

2008-03-28T19:21:00.000-07:00

One of the most popular rides in the east bay is a loop around the San Pablo Dam and Briones reservoirs via Bear Creek Road. Bear Creek features three hills, which are known as the “three bears”.

The main loop is about 20 miles, but there are several ways to tack on mileage before and after the bears. This ride, a ‘moderate’ route, goes up Old Tunnel Road to Skyline, into Tilden via Grizzly Peak/Wildcat Canyon, and then tackles the bears counter-clockwise.

My cyclo-computer pooped out, so I don’t have good time data for this ride. I did record elapsed time up to Skyline, more or less, since this is my designated time trial section. I completed this section in 48 minutes, I think, which is slightly faster than last time.

Total Distance: 47 miles
Elevation gain: about 4200 feet
Time in the Saddle: unknown; probably about 4.5 hours
Route (on bikely.com): Three Bears

Mt Diablo - summit via North Gate (34 miles)

2008-03-16T18:29:00.000-07:00

So I found out this week that I was selected as part of the Death Ride random lottery (yay me!) so it's going to be a lot of climbing from now until July 12. I also have a metric, a century, and a tour scheduled in between, but I'm not too worried about those. Obviously everything pales in comparison to the death ride in terms of preparation, even when you're only planning on doing 3 passes.

On all my trips up Diablo I've taken South Gate up to the junction and descended North Gate. South Gate has an average grade of 5% and I had heard that it was noticeably easier than the northern approach. Now that I've got the Death Ride on my schedule, there are no more easy outs. North Gate it is.

Also, crazy cyclist guy at work said that there was a beautiful patch of poppies along the North Gate approach, and I wanted to check those out.

North Gate definitely has some steeper sections than South Gate, and it doesn't feature the nice flat section on the other side of the mountain (through Rock City). However it does seem more lush than the south side, which has kind of an arid, rocky feel to it. And the southern approach doesn't really have any wildflowers (that I've seen) but the north side has plenty: lots of vibrant orange California poppies, yellow mustard (?), and lots of tiny purple flowers. I'm really bad at identifying specific plants (I'm more of the "pretty flowers!" observer), but I did find this one page on the internets that shows pics of California wildflowers. I'm thinking the purple and yellow ones I saw might be of the lily variety. Next trip up I'll try to take a closer look.

Speaking of analysis, crazy cyclist guy at work showed me this spreadsheet that he has for the Death Ride. It's populated with the distance and elevation gain for each leg of the ride; you enter your projected feet/min and it calculates how long it will take you to complete each pass. But how do you estimate your feet per minute? I decided (mid-ride today) to develop a similar spreadsheet to record my ride data from each ride up Diablo. The ride up North Gate then up to the summit is relatively similar to the elevation profile of the Death Ride passes (except it's all at much higher elevation of course). By recording my elapsed time on each segment of the ride, I can calculate my average mph as well as my feet/minute. Et voila, I can plug that value into the Death Ride spreadsheet and make sure I won't miss any cutoffs.

I didn't collect data for the first leg, from North Gate gate up to the junction. But from the junction to Juniper campground it took me 28 minutes to cover 2.3 miles and 740 vertical feet (Juniper is at 2940 feet). So my average speed was 4.93 mph and my feet/min was 26.43. Pretty slow, but the next leg was even worse: from Juniper up to the summit my average speed was 4 mph and my feet/min was 25.33. I need to work on doing that climb a bit faster if I'm going to be reasonably comfortable on the Sierra passes.

Marin Headlands-Paradise Loop (about 50 miles)

2008-03-09T18:50:00.000-07:00

This ride is basically the classic Tiburon/Paradise ride with a quick Marin Headlands loop thrown in at the beginning for good measure. The full 50 mile route begins and ends at the Embarcadero ferry building in San Francisco, but there are several shorter options that are possible using ferry connections in Tiburon or Sausalito.

For the record, the weather in the bay area could not have been more perfect than it was today. Sunny and warm (even in the city), mild temperatures, hardly any breeze. It was really spectacular, and I congratulate all of the tourists out and about for choosing one hell of a weekend to visit the city by the bay. Trust me, it ain't always like this here, especially in March, so you lucked out.

Anyway, from the ferry building, follow the bike lane north along the embarcadero waterfront, take a left on Beach street, head up or around Fort Mason, and on over to the Marina. Eventually you'll get to the base of the Golden Gate bridge. It's only about 5 miles but you might be tempted to stop for some photo ops, and why not. You'll get some very scenic shots of the bridge from this route along the bay. Public restrooms? Chrissy Field (past the marina but before the bridge) has some good ones. Avoid the restrooms at the bridge visitor area if possible. They stink.

Ride over the bridge (if you're paying attention you'll note that so far this is the standard route to get to Tiburon). In the parking lot on the marin side of the bridge, instead of going to your right to ride into Sausalito, take a left up a steep road. This is Conzelman Road, which wraps around the marin headlands. This initial part is the steepest, but there is more climbing ahead, as well as some scary steep descents. But the views are great, and because the road is narrow and remote, it doesn't seem to attract too much auto traffic.

The marin headlands have some interesting features along with the aforementioned spectacular views. There are two historic forts located here, Fort Barry and Fort Cronkhite, as well as the Point Bonita Lighthouse. Fort Barry was constructed at the end of the 19th century as a line of artillery defense, while Fort Cronkhite was used during World War II as a line of defense against a Pacific invasion. It's hard to imagine anyone invading the bay area via the Golden Gate; it seems more likely that the invaders would come from outer space, but maybe that's why the forts were abandoned.

Exit through the tunnel to meet back up with Sausalito Lateral. Follow this down into Sausalito to continue the Tiburon/Paradise loop.

I've realized that, as many times as I've done the Paradise ride, I've never blogged it. Weird. So, this ride is kind of the default ride to do in Marin, especially if you want something that you can start in the city. It has a bit of everything: the bridge, the artsy tourist trap of Sausalito, multiuse trails through marshlands, one good solid climb, and then 7 or 8 miles along a lovely road that gives the ride its name, Paradise Drive. Paradise drops you down to the Tiburon ferry building; after this point you end up retracing your way back to Sausalito and across the bridge.

The first time I did the ride, several years ago, I did it counter-clockwise. After that I think I've done it exclusively clockwise, which just seems more enjoyable to me, but there's a steady stream of cyclists in both directions, so whatever floats your boat.

Speaking of, because the route passes by two ferry terminals (Sausalito and Tiburon) it's easy to accommodate shorter options of the longer route. Today I had kc meet me in Tiburon after I had done the first 30 miles, and he rode the final 20 miles back to the city, so that's one good option for folks looking to avoid the hilly headlands and the early morning start.

Animules: lots of tourists
Total Distance: 52 miles
Elevation gain: 3500-4000 feet
Time in the Saddle: 4 hours 35 minutes
Route (on bikely.com): Marin-Headlands-Tiburon

State of the rider: Felt good today; passed a guy while climbing Conzelman to the headlands (he was not 80 years old, nor 300 lbs, nor riding a mountain bike); easily passed a chick road cyclist going up the climb to Corte Madera. What, did these people actually take the winter off or something?

Iron Horse-Dublin Grade (49 miles)

2008-03-02T16:56:00.000-08:00

This route is similar to the Oakland Yellowjackets' Dublin Grade route that goes counter clockwise over the Dublin grade and then heads north up to Walnut Creek. This reverse route begins in Orinda and heads south to Dublin as if on the Palomares route, but then turns west at Pleasanton and heads over the Dublin grade to Castro Valley. From there it's a quick jaunt through CV, up past Lake Chabot, and then over to San Leandro BART.

I had wanted to do the Dublin grade this weekend, since I hadn't done it in forever. But the weathermarroons had predicted gusty winds from the north, so by reversing the route and going clockwise, I was able to have a tailwind for 30 miles and only deal with the northerly headwinds briefly near the end of the route. Aren't I smart?

Nothing too remarkable on the ride, but it was nice to see the foothills so green. All the trees are in full spring bloom, as are my allergies. I hate having to blow snot rockets every few miles, because I find it disgusting. But on the other hand, if I'm having to blow my nose every 10 minutes, think of the kleenex I would go through on a 5 hour ride. There's a serious environmental impact to consider.

Animules: some horses
Total Distance: 49 miles
Elevation gain: about 2000 feet
Time in the Saddle: 3 hours 47 minutes
Route (on bikely.com): Iron Horse-Dublin Grade

Mt Diablo - summit (30 miles)

2008-02-18T19:53:00.000-08:00

Finally! Back in late September I made my second ever trek up Diablo, to the rangers station, and said blithely, "Next time I'll either try to improve [on my time] or try for the summit". Heh. Then there were the two attempts in November and one in December where I actually got pretty close but was turned back by the lousy conditions. So, fifth time's a charm.

Rather than starting at BART, I decided to drive and park in Danville, to reduce the pre-climbing mileage a bit. I parked at the newly renovated Oak Hill Park on Stone Valley Road, which has an amazing, brand-new public bathroom. We'll see how long that lasts.

The weather at the base of the mountain was overcast but relatively mild, probably low to mid-50s with very little wind. I broke through the cloud cover just past the ranger station, on my way up Summit Road. Above the inversion layer, the conditions were great. Sunny and deceptively warm. A cyclist in a short-sleeved jersey passed by as he was descending, fast, and a fellow climber said, "That guy is gonna freeze his nipples off!"

Summit Road is definitely steeper than the roads leading up to it, but there are only two sections, each about a mile long, where I struggled. I was going pretty slow, 3-4 miles an hour at most, but then about a mile from the top, there's a switchback and the road suddenly evens out a bit. What a relief. The final 400 foot approach to the observatory is a 16% grade, so I hoofed it up that part. But still, with the comfortable spring conditions, it really wasn't that bad.

That's two peaks down, and one to go. Mt Tam, here I come.

Lake Berryessa Loop (40 miles)

2008-02-17T19:40:00.000-08:00

If I had had my druthers (and a smaller credit card balance) I would have headed up to Calistoga for the long President's Day weekend. The next best thing is to fire up the ol' Toyota and head up to wine country for a day ride. This particular ride starts and ends at Lake Hennessey, just a bit north of Napa, near Rutherford. My four readers may remember that I cruised by Lake Hennessey back in September, when it was particularly low. We've had some decent rainfall this winter, so the lake seems.. full? I dunno. I should have taken a pic back in September, so we could do a side-by-side comparison. Oh well.

Anyway, you can park your ol' Toyota (or the vehicle of your choice) at the Lake Hennessey boat launch. There doesn't seem to be any requirement that you actually launch a boat to park here, which is good because that would have complicated matters. From the boat launch, the route travels north through Pope Valley, heads east along Pope Canyon, skirts alongside Lake Berryessa for 13 miles, then heads back to Lake Hennessey via Sage Canyon Road (highway 128). Chiles Pope Valley, Pope Canyon, and Sage Canyon Roads all traverse canyons with creeks, so even the non-lake portions of the route are quite scenic. I imagine these roads could get crowded in the summer, but today I barely saw anyone on the roads. Just a handful of cyclists, a few motorists, and some motorcycles. For large stretches I had the road entirely to myself. Whee!

The Chiles Valley is interesting.. it's just a few miles to the east of the Napa Valley appellation area, but it's clearly a bit more arid. Apparently the fog that can settle in the Napa valley doesn't quite get past the foothills into the Chiles Valley area. In fact this morning the fog driving up through Napa was like pea soup, but it didn't penetrate past Lake Hennessey. It's another example of the microclimates that we see in California so often, where you have the coastal climate, then a small seismic ridge, then a valley, then a ridge, then another valley, all within a 20 mile radius from the ocean. The valley is named after a guy named Joseph Chiles, who got one of the land grants from the Mexican government before the US seized the territory in 1848.

Lake Berryessa is a more recent development. Since seeing the movie Zodiac, I associate the lake with the zodiac killer, but it's not just for psychotic murders! It's also for people who like recreation, and boats, and picnics. The lake is a man-made reservoir, and was formed in the 1950s by the Monticello Dam. The decision to create the dam and flood the valley (and abandon the town of Monticello) was controversial, and documented by Dorothea Lange in her book Death of a Valley.

If you travel through Napa valley this time of year, you'll see lots of yellow mustard flowers covering the dormant vineyards. I wondered if these were wild flowers (tales of Junipero Serra tossing mustard seeds to the wind) but the internets tell me that the vintners plant mustard because they
stimulate the soil. Hmm.

Of course, no visit to the area would be complete without a quick stop for winetasting/purchasing. To get to and from Lake Hennessey, you'll pass through Rutherford and be within sloshing distance of tons of wineries along Silverado Trail. I belong to the wine club at Rutherford Hill, so naturally I took the opportunity to stop by and pick up a few bottles of Cab and vintage port. When in Napa...

Total Miles: 41
Elevation Gain: 3590 ft
Animules: lots of horses and cows
Route map (bikely.com): Hennessey-Berryessa

Kihei Sunshine Ride (40 miles)

2008-02-03T20:40:00.000-08:00

One lesson I learned while visiting Maui in the winter: if you want sunshine, even when the rest of the island is in a torrential downpour (or under snowcover), you need to head over to the leeward side known as "south Maui", home to the resort towns of Kihei and Wailea. The mass of Haleakala blocks most of the tradewind weather patterns, so at least you've got a shot at drying out for the day.

Originally we had planned on riding up to Hana from Paia, but after dealing with the elements on our west Maui tour, the prospect of more wet windy riding didn't seem very appealing. Instead we decided to head out to Kihei for a little sunshine. The route is simple: from Paia, take Hana Highway towards Kahului, and follow bumpy Hansen Road to Mokulele Highway. On Hansen Road you'll pass by an aging sugar mill, still in operation. Almost the entire valley between the eastern and western volcanic mountains is planted with sugar cane. According to The Book, one company owns all 37,000 acres of the stuff. That's a lot of sugah.

Where Hansen Road meets the highway, there's a brand-spanking new bikeway running along the eastern side of the highway. The bikeway goes all the way to Kihei, ending at Piilani Highway. Incidentally, the prevailent tradewinds that blow through the valley will push you along effortlessly all the way from Paia to Kihei. Just remember to leave some extra time for the return trip, when you'll be battling the headwinds a bit.

Where the bikeway ends, turn down Uwapo to reach South Kihei Road, which runs alongside the south shoreline for several miles. A marked bikelane comes and goes along this road, but even when it disappears there's generally enough shoulder to feel comfortable.

The south side of Maui is known for its fabulous beaches, and there are plenty of places along Kihei Road to stop and take in some sun and sand. Personal favorite: Kamaole Beach I, at Alanui Ke Alii Road. Or continue a mile or two down the road to the Kihei Boat Launch, where you'll find a nice walking path with benches; a good rest stop before the return trip.

Total Miles: 37 miles
Elevation Gain: close to zero
Route map (bikely.com): Paia-Kihei

West Maui Tour (80 miles)

2008-02-03T15:54:00.000-08:00

Day 1: Paia/Kahului to Napili

For my first multi-day bicycling tour of the season, I met my cycling buddies in Maui for a two day tour around the western half of the island. We started the ride from the Paia/Kahului side of the island to facilitate the airport exchange, but you could just as easily begin and end from the Kihei/Wailea side. You could also do this route as a long day ride, but you would have to start pretty early in the morning, given the challenging terrain of the last 30 miles.

From Kahului, traveling clockwise, there are two highways that lead to Lahaina and the surrounding communities: the Kuihelani Highway (380) and the Honoapiilani Highway (30). Highway 30 seems to carry less auto traffic and had a bike lane for significant portions, so this seems like the preferred road to take. To get to where the highway begins in Wailuku, you have to snake your way through urban and industrial parts of Kahului which are less than scenic. On the bright side, our meanders took us past a local greasy spoon called Tasty Crust, apparently known island-wide for their pancakes. Perfect fuel for the road!

Leaving Wailuku via highway 30, the tradewinds push you right through the valley at a speedy clip. Past the 7 mile marker, at McGregor Point and Lighthouse, is a pullout that's great for whale-watching. We saw several breaches within just a few minutes. Past mile 10 there's a narrow tunnel that's a bit sketchy, but there's enough shoulder to get by. Another 10 miles down the road is Lahaina, the historic whaling town and tourist trap. (Take Front St. from the highway). Lahaina provides a nice resting point, and there are plenty of options for food and refreshment here. We had a bite to eat at the Pioneer Inn Grill and Bar, which has a great wharf side location but isn't particularly cycling-friendly. The greasy long-haired jackass who was in charge gave us a big stink for parking our bikes on the sidewalk. He was really concerned about us blocking the walkway. Meanwhile, Front Street was a parking lot with a brazillion tourists and their SUVs.

Anyway, from Lahaina we continued on towards our first night's destination, Napili bay, just a few miles past Ka'anapali. Just outside of Napili, the road was actually closed to car traffic while crews worked on some power lines downed by the storm. Luckily we were able to walk our bikes past.

Yeah, the weather was... not so good. It's the rainy season, so you expect some showers, but there was actually a pretty substantial stormfront hanging over the island for most of the week, making for some less than ideal riding conditions. J likened it to riding in Cambodia during the monsoon season. I didn't feel like we got pummeled by too much rain on the West Maui ride, but the roads were wet, muddy, sometimes flooded, with occasional rock slides and other debris on the shoulders. At the end of each day we looked like we had gone mud-wrestling rather than cycling. So, it was certainly nice to arrive in Napili for a brief respite from the rain and mud before we hit the road again for day two.

Napili has lots of condo rentals that are relatively inexpensive, given the beautiful location (a protected bay with a perfect cresent of sandy beach). Napili Village has spacious studio condos that sleep up to 4 ($160 a night). You can have dinner with a bay view at the Sea House, about a block away. Try the poi, it's tasteless! (at least that's how our waitress marketed it) They also have live music, some good Hawaiian stuff mixed with covers of '70s and '80s classics for the golf course Haoles. Rock on!

Day 2: Napili to Paia

The second day of the ride takes you past the remaining condo towns where few tourists venture. Past Kapalua the road narrows to one lane and traces a sinuous path along the cliffs. Even in good weather this leg of the route would be challenging, with the constant hills, quick descents, and narrow switchbacks. A few brief sections are so steep that I had to use my lowest gear (i.e. walking). In our less than ideal conditions it was a real bear of a ride. But it was still pretty spectacular. It reminded me a bit of stretches of highway 1 in California.. just a bit more lush and tropical.

There are no services on this stretch of highway, besides a couple small fruit stands in Kahakuloa town. Just past the village begins the only sustained climb of the day: an elevation gain of 1000 feet of so over 2-3 miles. For the most part the road is well graded in this section, so it's actually a pleasant climb compared to some of the steep stuff earlier on. After that, it's all downhill back to Wailuku.

Total Miles: 80
Elevation Gain: unknown
Route maps (bikely.com): Paia-Napili and Napili-Paia

Tilden Park-San Pablo Dam Reservoir (38 miles)

2008-01-19T19:32:00.000-08:00

With one week left until the Maui trip, and a three day weekend courtesy of uncle Arnold, I wanted to get in a ride every day over the weekend. This is mostly just for training purposes, but I also want to see how the aluminum frame Dolce feels after consecutive days of riding. In the past when I've done multi-day tours I've always taken the steel-frame Terry. But for various reasons, I decided to just rent a bike on Maui from a bike shop that carries the make, model, and size of my Specialized Dolce.

Anyway, when I started out this morning I intended to do the Grizzly Peak Pinehurst loop, but then about half way through I decided I would take a left after Tilden rather than a right. This option takes you past the San Pablo Dam reservoir, then through some slightly white trash communities of the bay area before rejoining the Berkeley area and vicinity.

The jaunt through El Cerrito and Albany follows the Ohlone bikeway, which is nice if you don't mind that a) it runs directly under the BART rail, and b) that it requires stopping as it intersects each block. One item of note: the northern part of the bikeway is a wildflower preserve, and the flowers are just starting to bloom. Pretty!

For the initial ride up Old Tunnel Road, I clocked time in motion of 43 minutes and 30 seconds, which is 3 minutes faster than when I clocked it on January 1 as my "time trial". Today I really tried to stay out of my lowest gear on the climb, since I know my Maui rental won't have a 28 on the cassette. Forcing myself to push a slightly higher gear might have accounted for the difference.

Animules: more skunk roadkill. What is going on with the dead skunks this winter? Also, some horses, alive, with riders, up in the park
Total Distance: 38 miles
Elevation gain: about 3800 feet
Time in the Saddle: 3.5 hours
Route (on bikely.com): Tilden-San Pablo Dam

Orinda-Fremont via Sunol (49 miles)

2008-01-13T18:47:00.000-08:00

After several weeks of craptastic weather, we finally caught a break this weekend and had sunny skies and relatively high temperatures. I had forgotten how just a little sunshine can really brighten your mood after seemingly endless rainy gloom. I had planned on riding both Saturday and Sunday, but on Friday night I went to a tiki bar with a friend and had waaaay too many mai-tais. I was wreck on Saturday and barely managed to leave the apartment, so, no ride on Saturday.

But after a good night's rest and lots of fluids, I was a new woman, and decided to take a nice long spin over in the San Ramon valley. This ride has been my standard longish flat ride for a while now; the scenery is nice, it follows bike routes and paths almost the entire way, and it's relatively flat so you can really get going (assuming there are no strong headwinds, which can be an issue in spots). Anyway, given that I've done this ride so many times, I was surprised that I had never blogged it before. It's very similar to both the Orinda-Palomares ride and the Orinda-Union City ride, it just terminates at a different BART station.

This is another BART to BART ride, beginning at Orinda BART and ending at Fremont BART. There's a very gradual incline (it's hard to even call it a climb) out of Orinda heading into Moraga, but beyond that, it's flat smooth sailing for the next 35 miles or so, through Lafayette, Walnut Creek, Danville, Dublin, and Pleasanton. Today there were absolutely no headwinds, maybe a bit of a tailwind even, so I flew through the first 30 miles of the rides in about 2.5 hours. That was with a 20 minute stop at Starbucks. Past Sunol I took Niles Canyon road back to the bay side of the hills. This road has always been a bit sketchy (it's highway 84 with just two lanes and a disappearing shoulder) but it's become even worse lately. They've widened the center divider, adding those bumpy things, without doing anything about the shoulder. Basically they've reduced the shoulder even further, which is a ridiculous hazard for cyclists given the speed of the traffic. And this is on a known and popular bicycle route. It's a real shame because this road goes through a beautiful canyon with the creek and a historic railway line. It could be a nice bikeway linking Pleasanton/Sunol with Fremont, but it looks like they're taking it in the other direction.

Animules: all kinds of roadkill on Niles Canyon, including 4 dead skunks.
Total Distance: 48 miles
Elevation gain: about 1200 feet
Time in the Saddle: 3.5 hours
Route (on bikely.com): Orinda-Fremont

Time Trial: Old Tunnel Road

2008-01-01T17:46:00.000-08:00

I do this quick ride all the time, but realized today that it's a good candidate for a hilly time trial. Starting from Rockridge, it's a steady 5 mile climb up to the ridge line, where Skyline Blvd meets Grizzly Peak. There are a couple of nice things about this climb: there's only one traffic light to get through (and usually you don't have to wait more than 20 seconds for it to turn), and Old Tunnel Road has very light traffic, limited mostly to local residents.

From now on I'm going to start clocking this ride whenever I do it, to see if I can't shave some time off in the coming months. I expect my time will be slightly faster when I'm riding the Specialized (aluminum) rather than the Terry (steel frame, with racks and panniers), so I'll note which machine I'm using each time.

Bike: Specialized Dolce
Total Time Clocked, from Claremont/College to Grizzly Peak: 49 minutes
Actual Ride time: 46 minutes 30 seconds
Total Distance: 5.1 miles
Route (bikely.com): Old Tunnel Road

Cycling goals for 2008

2008-01-01T17:22:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again... New Year's cycling resolutions! In the coming year I plan to concentrate on two main cycling goals: becoming a kickass climbing machine and doing more multi-day touring.

Climbing

1. Climb to the summit of each of the three major peaks in the bay area.
I've already got a head start on this one, having done Mt. Hamilton this past fall, and getting closer to the summit of Diablo each time up. I feel pretty good about being able to check off the Diablo summit sometime in the early spring, but Mt. Tam is going to be a challenge.

2. Complete 3 passes in the Death Ride.
I think I mentioned that I signed up for the Death Ride lottery drawing, but I won't know if I've been selected for participation until sometime in February. When I first heard about this ride, I thought it sounded crazy. But I'm pretty sure that if it were held today I could do one pass. Since I have 6 months to train, it seems reasonable that I could do 3 passes by the time July comes along.

Touring

In 2007 I did my second multi-day credit card tour, a 5 day trip down the California coast. It was a really exhilerating ride and made me want to spend a lot more time touring in 2008. First up will be 4 days of riding around Maui in late January, with R and J. Should be great fun, and a great way to experience the island. There are also plans to do a ride back east in July, again with R and J (hope they don't get sick of me!). And then I'd like to squeeze in one more short tour in the fall, if possible.

Centuries

I'm not really going to focus on centuries this season, but there are always events on the calendar that look like too much fun to pass up. This year I definitely plan on doing:

1. Cinderella Century - the classic women-only metric, right here in the bay area. Always a blast, provided the weather holds up.
2. Wine Country Century - a beautiful ride with great rest stops
3. Sequoia Century - I did the 40 mile route of this one year, and it was pretty hilly. But I'm thinking I can at least do the metric this year.
4. Death Ride
5. Moonlight Magic Century - This is a night ride through Death Valley that looks awesome. It would be an ordeal to get out there, but I think it would be an unforgettable experience.
6. CFGFC - on hiatus in 2007, but if I can find a better route for the last 30 miles, I'll resurrect it for 2008

2007 year end stats

2007-12-29T08:09:00.000-08:00

Well, I've still got two more days to add to the tally, but the initial stats for calendar year 2007 are:

Total miles logged: 4199
Total time in the saddle: 372 hours

Woohoo! Next up, cycling goals for the new year...

Update: I managed to get in two more rides before the end of the year, so the final numbers for 2007 are 4241 miles and 376 hours in the saddle.

Grizzly Peak Pinehurst Loop (38 miles)

2007-12-16T18:31:00.000-08:00

For today's ride I wanted something that would give me a nice climbing workout without having to travel too far. Luckily I've got the east bay hills pretty much at my doorstep, so I decided to do a ride that would provide a kind of hill interval workout. This ride is similar to the East Bay Hills Ramble Lite, except instead of entering Tilden via Spruce Avenue in Berkeley, you take Old Tunnel Road up to Grizzly Peak and then follow Grizzly Peak to Tilden.

The weather was in the mid-40s, so it was bearable out if not exactly what I would call comfortable. The only time I felt really, really cold was on the final descent down Old Tunnel Road back into Oakland. By that point my feet were numb (even with my half-booties over my shoes) and I was questioning my sanity a bit. Once I had a cactus burrito in my belly, I felt better.

The basic profile of the ride is:

1. Old Tunnel Road to Skyline: an easy-to-moderate climb averaging 4-5% grade over 3 miles.
2. 1st part of Grizzly Peak: flattish for about 2 miles as you cruise along the ridge
3. Climb to Tilden: a short, moderate climb up to the boundary of Tilden Park
4. 2nd part of Grizzly Peak: flat again for a couple of miles
5. into Tilden: flat to rolling through the park
6. Wildcat Canyon descent
7. Moraga Way: an easy gradual ascent, probably 2-3%, over 3 miles
8. 1st part of Pinehurst: flat to rolling, gradual ascent, 3-4%?
9. 2nd part of Pinehurst: moderate climb with a steep finish
10. Old Tunnel descent back to town

So there's a good variety of climbs interspersed with rest periods. You can check out the elevation profile for the route as well, but I've noticed lately that the elevation functionality on Bikely seems to be crapping out more and more. Like on this profile it looks like I drop off a cliff around mile 15 then spring back up to 500 feet around mile 20. Odd.

Animules: none; hibernation?
Total Distance: 38 miles
Elevation gain: about 4500 feet
Time in the Saddle: 3 hours 45 minutes
Route (bikely.com): Grizzly Peak Pinehurst Loop

Death Ride

2007-12-15T08:44:00.000-08:00

My boss' boss' boss, Paul, is a hard core cyclist. You know, the kind who goes up and down Mount Diablo two or three times in a row just for kicks. I usally say he's a crazy hard core cyclist, but when I'm considering doing something called the Death Ride, it becomes a kind of pot/kettle situation. Paul emailed me yesterday to encourage me to register for the Death Ride lottery, and after giving it some thought, I went ahead and signed up.

The Death Ride is a ride over 5 passes in the Sierras, just south of Lake Tahoe. The total distance if you do all the passes is 129 miles, with 15,000 feet of vertical climbing. But you don't have to do all 5 passes, and because the way the course is arranged with a bunch of out-and-backs from a central point, you could do just one or two passes and call it a day.

I'm pretty sure I could do at least one pass on this ride. Monitor Pass begins at around 5500 feet and peaks at 8300 feet, so total elevation gain is about same as going up Mount Diablo. Of course you're starting at a high elevation, so altitude can be a factor. I don't think I would do the back side of Monitor, which is the second pass, but I might try Ebbett's Pass, which goes from 6000 to 8700 feet, but is supposed to be quite a bit steeper than Monitor. The back side of Ebbett's is a shorter pass, so three passes might be within my reach.

The way this registration works is, you sign up now and then in February they randomly select 2800 participants. Then you have one month to confirm and pay the entry fee. So I may not get selected, but if I am I have a lot of training to do between now and July.

Indoor Trainer workout #1

2007-12-09T17:55:00.000-08:00

It was a bit too chilly today for a real ride (at least that's my story), and so I decided to dust off the ol' trainer and take a spin inside where it was nice and warm and there weren't any holiday shoppers in their SUVs yelling at me to "ride on the sidewalk". And anyway, who doesn't love hooking a bicycle up to the trainer and doing the 'sit and stare' workout for an hour?

I own a couple of these cycling workout DVDs, which I thought would alleviate the boredom a bit, and they do, but I can only watch them once or twice during the off-season because the annoyance factor is so high. The host is kind of a Jeff Probst type (although with more credibility) who circulates among the huge spin class group with this peppy electro-muzac soundtrack playing in the background. The DVD case says: "Train your Aerobic Base with over 95 Cyclists from Ft. Wayne, Indiana!"

So I've devised my own interval workout, outlined below. If I were a writer for Bicycling magazine I'd throw out some pseudo-scientific sports mediciny explanation of the benefits of this workout. But I'm not, so I won't. I think I should come up with a name for my workout though.. maybe Cynical Intervals, or Cynervals.

Cynerval Workout #1

5 min: warm up spin

5 min: ok, warm up is over, time to crank it up a bit, but not too much! This is like you're on a nice wide multi-use path on a foggy day. The path is empty and there aren't any stop signs or lights, so you can just cruise along at a nice brisk pace.

10 min: intervals - 1 minute at your brisk spin pace, then shift into your biggest chainring in front and smallest cog in back. Pedal for 1 minute maintaining the same cadence. Repeat the intervals for 10 minutes.

5 min: spin

5 min: Get Off Your Ass intervals - Shift into your highest gear again and pedal out of the saddle for 30 seconds, then in the saddle for 30 seconds, out of the saddle for 30, etc.

5 min: spin

5 min: GOYA intervals

10 min: spin/cooldown

Soundtrack: Screaming Trees: Sweet Oblivion

Walnut Creek-Mt. Diablo Loop (35 miles)

2007-12-02T16:53:00.000-08:00

Well I've been wondering at what point it would just get too cold to ride. Today I discovered the answer is: at about 3200 feet up Mt. Diablo, just shy of the summit. I started out this morning knowing it would be cold and gusty. Weather.com had predicted highs in the 40s with winds 15-20 mph. But still, I was surprised when I started up South Gate and there were hardly any other cyclists on the road. Usually, Diablo is packed with all kinds of bicyclists, dozens and dozens of them. Today there were a few coming down the hill, but I only encountered a couple on the way up. Weird.

Once past the rangers station and on my way up summit road, it dawned on my why I had the place all to myself. It was fucking freezing up there! If it was in the mid 40s down at sea level, it must have been in the 30s up at 3000 feet, especially with the wind chill. I turned back with about a mile and half to go till the summit, and then shivered my way through a frigid 10 mile descent.

So, a good ride, but probably my last ascent up summit road until spring.

Animules: one gray fox crossing South Gate road
Total Distance: 35 miles
Elevation gain: about 3200 feet
Time in the Saddle: 3 hours 25 minutes

November mileage stats

2007-12-01T18:29:00.000-08:00

November mileage: 291
November Time in the Saddle: 25 hours

East Bay Hills Ramble Trois? (40 miles)

2007-11-25T18:27:00.000-08:00

Today's ride was another variation of a ride in and around the East Bay hills. Basically there are several ways to enter the hills and several ways to exit, so there are lots of rambles possible. If I had time I'd draw up a decision tree of all the possible entrances, turns, and exits. That would be really cool.

Anyway, today's route enters the Berkeley hills via Spruce Avenue, travels through Tilden Park to Orinda and Moraga, then into the Oakland Hills and along the ridgeline to Castro Valley. From Castro Valley I had planned on circling by Lake Chabot, but Lake Chabot Road was closed for "tree disposal". So I had to take a detour that was significantly less scenic but with the same end point: San Leandro BART station.

Animules: None! Hiberation?
Total Distance: 40 miles
Total Time in the Saddle: 3.5 hours
Total Elevation gain: about 3700 feet
Bikely.com route map: East Bay Hills Ramble 3

Mt Diablo lite (35 miles)

2007-11-22T21:21:00.000-08:00

This morning, pre-turkey, I rode out to Danville and up to the rangers station on Mt Diablo. I had planned to go all the way up to the summit today, but it was windy and cold.. I think it was only in the 40s most of the morning, and I really started feeling the elements out there today. Even though it was cold, it was crystal clear and beautiful up on the mountain. The streets were deserted, but there were lots of cyclists riding up Diablo... everyone cleaning out their systems in anticipation of Thanksgiving feasts?

Maui County Bicycle Map

2007-11-18T17:53:00.000-08:00

While researching a bicyle touring vacation in Maui, I came across this Maui County Bicycle Map, which is kinda nice. It shows suggested routes around the island as well as some elevation profiles for some routes (including directional tradewinds).

Maui Bicycle Map

Unfortunately this online version is low-res, so I can't make out the elevation marks. Paia to Hana: does that max out at 1400 or 3400 feet or 5000 something? Inquiring minds want to know!

Hike: Palomarin to Alamere Falls (7.5 miles)

2007-11-12T21:21:00.000-08:00

We're fortunate in the bay area to have amazing natural environments right at our door step, and there are tons of hikes and nature walks available to explore all kinds of different terrain. Today's hike was a 7.5 mile out and back through the Point Reyes reserve, terminating in a waterfall pouring into the Pacific Ocean.

Bay Area Hiker has a good write up on this hike, which starts at the Palomarin trailhead, in the Point Reyes National Seashore. Point Reyes is a really interesting nature reserve, with lots of diverse ecosystems. The Point Reyes promontory has been migrating north over the last millions of years-- it used to be directly off the Monterey bay coast-- and the movement is somehow related to the San Andreas Fault, which separates the point from the coastal mainland. I wonder if this accounts for some of the diversity of the landscape.

The hike follows the California Coastal Trail, and skirts several interesting coastal lakes before arriving at a junction with an unmaintained trail out to Alamere Falls, a nice tidefall. To get down to where the cascades hit the beach, there are a couple of pretty tricky scambles. I did the first one without any problem but then chickened out on the second. That's ok, even from the plateau 40 feet above the beach, the waterfall and scenery were really beautiful.

Round trip the hike took about 4 hours, including a significant break to allow for frolic time at the beach.

Morgan Territory Loop (54 miles)

2007-11-11T19:13:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to do this ride for a while, and have just been waiting for the weather to cooperate. Today the conditions were perfect: we had a brief rainstorm move through Friday and Saturday, but it cleared up early Sunday morning. So it was sunny and dry, but cool. A perfect day for tackling a challenge like Morgan Territory.

Morgan Territory Road is a scenic country road that skirts the eastern side of Mt Diablo, and passes through the Morgan Territory Regional Reserve. The area is named for Jeremiah Morgan, who claimed the entire area as his own in the 1850s. While this road doesn't ascend Diablo itself, it does take you up to about 2000 feet, and the road in some parts is quite steep. So it's definitely not a gimme.

The loop begins and ends at Walnut Creek BART. The Oakland Yellow Jackets have a great turn-by-turn routesheet (pdf) that I more or less followed for this ride.

About 10 miles into the ride you'll pass through the town of Clayton-- first you'll hit the standard suburban sprawl portion of town, then the quaint old downtown area. Clayton is a good place to stop for food and drinks (lots of supermarkets and eateries, and I spotted a Peete's at mile 9.6), or you can make a pitstop at a nice park on Marsh Creek Road called Clayton Community Park. Restrooms and drinking fountains available here.

Marsh Creek Road has a lot of auto traffic and not much shoulder, but once I turned onto Morgan Territory Road, the traffic completely disappeared. In 9 miles I passed maybe 5 cars, and surprisingly didn't see any other cyclists. Weird. I had heard that Morgan Territory had lots of steep sections, but the first 6 miles were very gentle. I thought, Hey, this is easy! Then came the last 2-3 miles with lots of nasty steep climbing, but at least there were some stretches of more gentle grade to recover, and lots of shading for sun protection. This stretch of the road was heavily wooded, with oaks and.. other trees (despite that high school biology project that involved collecting all those tree leaves, they still all look the same to me). It almost reminded me of some of the scenery in New Jersey. Maybe my east coast readers will see the pics and disagree.

Just before the summit (around 2000 feet) is the Morgan Territory Reserve staging area, with pit toilets and not much else. There was a large orienteering group at the staging area while I was there. That always looks like fun to me; I should look into that and see what the deal is. Past the summit, you begin the descent into the Livermore valley area. It's really striking how quickly the scenery changes at this point. All of that shaded, wooded reserve gives way to arrid grazing hills that are bone-dry this time of year.

It was like turning a corner and finding yourself on another planet. It's a nice descent though: not technical at all, just a straight, fast shot down to the valley. Once there, the route follows Highland Road and Camino Tassajara (part of the Cinderella Century route-- beware the headwinds!) to return to Danville. Oh, and on Finley Road you have to check out the old Tassajara School, dating to 1889. Quaint!

From Danville it's a straight shot up Danville Blvd to the BART station.

Animules: one llama, many horses, some cows, three deer, lots of hawks
Total Distance: 54 miles
Elevation gain: about 3000 feet
Time in the Saddle: 5 hours
Route (on bikely.com): Morgan Territory Loop

Good eats: Cab-braised short ribs

2007-11-05T19:20:00.000-08:00

One of the things I like to do after a long ride is prepare (and consume) a really nice meal. I don't know why, but almost any food is extra tasty after a long, hard ride. When I come across a particularly tasty post-ride meal, I'll post the recipe here.

This past Sunday, after coming very close to getting to the summit of Mt. Diablo, I treated myself to cabernet-braised short ribs, roasted red and sweet potatoes, and roasted brussel sprouts. For the short rib preparation, I essentially followed the recipe at Bon Appetit. This is really pretty simple:

First, you want to season the short ribs a day in advance and just put them in the fridge over night. Lay the ribs (I had about 2.5 lbs of them) in a glass pan and sprinkle generously with a mixture of kosher salt, pepper, fresh thyme, and fresh rosemary (about 1 tbsp of each). Cover and chill overnight.

To continue-- heat some olive oil in a heavy pan over medium heat and brown the short ribs, about 6-8 minutes on each side. Transfer ribs to a plate and drain off the oil from the pan. Next pour a full bottle of Cab (I just used two buck Chuck) into the pan and bring to a boil, scraping up any browned bits on the pan. I added some vegetable stock at this point too, just for kicks. Return the ribs to the pan, reduce the heat to a low simmer, cover, and let it cook for a good hour and 15 if not more. Note that Bon Appetit calls for this to braise in the oven but since I don't have a suitable dutch oven I prepared this entirely on the stove top.

While the ribs are simmering away, cut up some new red potatoes and small sweet potatoes into chunks, toss with olive oil, thyme, and rosemary, and place in a single layer in a parchment-lined baking dish. Put these into the oven (350-375) about 45 minutes before you're planning on serving dinner. After that, clean some brussel sprouts, cut in half, and similarly toss in a bit of olive oil, thyme, and rosemary. Place these, cut side down, in another parchment-lined baking dish. These will only take 15-20 minutes to roast, so put them in last.

Now, when your short ribs are tender, remove them from the braising sauce and set aside, covered with foil to keep them warm. To thicken the wine sauce, combine 1 tbsp butter and 1 tbsp flour in a small bowl, combine into a paste, and then whisk into the simmering wine sauce until it thickens. The sauce should be well-seasoned already, but you can add more salt/pepper if desired.

Serve the short ribs with the sauce drizzled on top and the potatoes and brussel sprouts on the side. Don't forget to open another bottle of Cab to drink along with the ribs.

Lafayette-Mt. Diablo Loop (42.5 miles)

2007-11-04T17:48:00.000-08:00

Today I came this close to making it up to the summit of Mt. Diablo. Even though I didn't make it up there today, I did go farther up than on my last trip, and I'm pretty sure that next time I'll be able to get my ass up to the top without too much trouble.

Like last time, I began at Lafayette BART station, which gives me a nice warm-up of 12-13 miles before starting the real climb. Unfortunately I again consumed 4 cups of java before heading out and again had trouble finding a restroom before hitting the mountain. Last time I passed up a porta-potty at a park that was under construction, in the hopes of finding a better option (yes that was stupid). This time I stopped at that park and the construction is finished, so no more porta-potty. Argh. Luckily they are doing some re-paving at the Athenian School at the base of Diablo, so there's a pit toilet there for now. But I really need to map out some better break spots, because I feel like I'm at the mercy of the construction crews in the San Ramon valley.

I wasn't really feeling 100% today, and it was pretty warm up on the mountain... probably around 75 degrees, which is too goddamn hot for November if you ask me. So I think it took me a bit longer to get up to the rangers station. At that point I took the turn up Summit Road for the first time ever. I was expecting it to be harsh, because it's supposed to be much steeper than either approach to the rangers station. But actually it really wasn't too bad. From the rangers station to the summit is 4.5 miles, and I made it up to Juniper campground, 3000 ft and 2 miles from the summit, when I ran out of water. And, because this is the kind of luck I have, none of the water spigots are working on the mountain right now. Apparently they've turned off all the water because they're low. Fair enough, but still... it's a problem if you're out there and dehydrated, no? At the campground I ran into a park ranger, Sam, who gave me one of his extra water bottles. Thanks Sam! Since I was already a bit dehydrated, I didn't want to push it, so that's when I decided to head back down. Next time I'll hydrate better and bring extra water.

Heading back down North Gate was pleasant.. I stopped to take a few pics along the way. Instead of finishing up at Pleasant Hill BART I looped back over to Lafayette for a quick BART ride home.

Animules: horses, one dead squirrel
Total Distance: 42.5 miles
Elevation gain: about 3000 feet
Time in the Saddle: 4 hours
Route (on bikely.com): Lafayette-Mt. Diablo

October mileage stats

2007-10-31T19:31:00.000-07:00

Total mileage was way down this month... the lowest my mileage has been since the beginning of the calendar year (January 2007, 273 miles). I missed one weekend of riding while in Dallas/Ft Worth at the beginning of the month, but mostly I think it's just my normal slowdown at the end of the riding season.

I did have some high quality rides in October though: I climbed Mt Hamilton and did some good riding in and around New York.

October mileage: 286
October Time in the Saddle: 26.2 hours

Orinda-Sunol-Union City (62 miles)

2007-10-28T17:39:00.000-07:00

This ride is a bit of a hybrid, combining the first 45 miles of the Orinda-Palomares ride with a jaunt down the Alameda Creek path and a quick turn through urban-industrial Union City. This is another BART-to-BART ride: the route begins at Orinda BART station and finishes up at South Hayward BART.

The stretch from Orinda to Sunol (i.e the first 40 miles or so) has become one of my favorite standard rides this season. It's a really pleasant route that's relatively flat without too many stops or lights, so you can really speed down to Dublin/Pleasanton in no time.

Instead of taking the turn up Palomares Road, I stayed on Niles Canyon and picked up the Alameda Creek trail at Mission. I followed the trail to Union City Blvd, then headed north to Industrial Parkway. Obviously this is a utilitarian route rather than a scenic one, but it's a straight shot down Industrial Parkway to South Hayward BART. Besides, there aren't a lot of scenic options through Union City and Hayward, so you sort of have to settle for the functional.

While out and about I was keeping an eye open for changing fall colors. Being in New York last weekend got me thinking about fall foliage, so I've been on a mission this week to spot any isolated trees in the bay area that are undergoing an autumn transformation. From what I can tell, the hills around here don't have too many trees that change, but scattered throughout many residential areas (including my own) there are lots of these little trees that are changing to a very bright red. Wonder what kind of tree that is...?

Animules: horses, and some pasturing cows in Union City
Total Distance: 62 miles
Elevation Gain: 1400 feet
Route (on bikely.com): Orinda-Sunol-Union City

NY Dining: wd-50

2007-10-27T18:39:00.000-07:00

When R told me that we were going to a resto called wd-50, I wasn't sure what to expect. Apparently I'm the only person on the planet who wasn't familiar with the head chef, Wylie Dufresne. I've since mentioned his name in conversation and everyone is like, Of course, Wylie Dufresne. I'm always the last to know. Anyway, Dufresne made an appearance in the season finale of Top Chef 2, and it was through the show that I was familar with the concept of molecular gastronomy. So, anyway, I was kind of expecting everything to come with foam, Marcel-style. And I figured it would definitely be a unique experience, but I wasn't prepared to be really blown away by the concept, creativity, and flavor of every dish we had.

At J's suggestion, we opted for the 12 course tasting menu, and we were certainly not disappointed. Only the opening course, a delicious seared bonita with pistacio paste, was commonplace. Most of the other courses exhibited a culinary creativity that I don't think I've experienced before. I'm still not exactly sure what molecular gastronomy means (or whatever term they're using this week), but my impression was one of analysis and synthesis. For some courses it seemed like we were deconstructing a familiar item into its fundamental components and then reconfiguring each component slightly. In other courses, there was a focus on synthesis: disparate flavors and textures that were surprisingly complimentary when combined. The following are just a few of the courses that really stood out for me as particularly memorable:

Pizza pebbles, pepperoni, shiitake
One of the interesting things about the actual menu was how deceptively simple everything sounded on paper. In this case the "pizza pebbles" were marble-sized balls of very concentrated pizza flavor sitting on beds of something that looked like cheese (?) and accented with shiitake mushroom and fresh herbs. The only thing that didn't quite work for me was the texture of the pebbles, which seemed grainy to me. Was that on purpose (pebbles=grainy)?

Knot foie
This course was beautifully presented: a thick rectangular thread of foie gras was sculpted into a knot and then topped with tiny grains of Iranian cracker and spicy kimchee puree. Really nice.

Beef tongue, fried mayo, tomato molasses
This inventive (signature?) dish represented another decontruction, like the pizza pebbles. In this case it seemed like a hamburger decontructed, or maybe a deli sandwich, with the beef tongue cured and thinly sliced, small cubes of fried mayonnaise, a smear of "tomato molasses", and finely diced lettuce and onion to the side. Delicious.

French onion soup
This was another unique take on an old standby. The wd-50 website has a photo of this one, so scroll down and check it out.. in the broth there were these liquid "ravioli" of gruyere.. creamy on the inside but incapsulated in a kind of bubble. Apparently the technique here involves sodium alginate and calcium chloride, which are widely used in molecular gastronomy to produce these liquid bubbles. Very cool stuff.

Lamb belly, black chickpea, cherried cucumber
This was the final entree course, and it really packed a punch. The lamb belly was sliced and tasted like strongly flavored bacon and the chickpeas were purreed on the side. It hovered just on the edge of overpowering, but was tremendously satisfying before heading into the dessert courses.

Ocean trout, fava bean, forbidden rice
This one wasn't technically on the tasting menu, but they served it to R as a substitution for a shellfish course. The forbidden rice looked like hard balls of charcoal, but inside the crusty exterior they were soft and absolutely scrumptious. From the article, linked above, it says that they cook the rice, put it through a meat grinder, then fry it. Delish.

Date sorbet, pandan-soymilk, matsutake
This was the first of several dessert courses that we were treated to. The matsutake was formed into a small cylinder filled with the date sorbet. It was absolutely heavenly.

Fried butterscotch pudding, mango, taro, smoked macadamia
Another wonderful dessert, with the combination of sweet fried butterscotch and Hawaiian flavors of taro and macadamia.

Soft white chocolate, potato, malt, white beer ice cream
For some reason this was the only dish that I thought to snap a pic of (I forgot I had my camera with me). It's quite dark but it gives a feel for the lovely presentation of this dessert. This was another course where there a successful synthesis of disparate flavors. On its own the beer ice cream had a bit of a bitter finish, but it combined nicely with the white chocolate and malt smear.

Anyway, almost all of the courses were memorable and really delicious. I feel like my understanding of American cuisine really expanded with the exposure to new flavor profiles, techniques, and ways of thinking about food.

Jersey Fall Foliage Ride (about 40 miles)

2007-10-24T20:44:00.000-07:00

I had hoped to time my trip to New York such that I would catch the trees in full autumn bloom. But as we've learned in the past, for instance like when I tried to time my trip to Japan to hit the cherry blossom explosion, mother nature likes to fart in my general direction. So, predictably, the fall foliage was late this year due to unseasonably warm weather well into October. However, after consulting the local area foliage report, we figured we might catch the edge of the autumn wave by riding north into New Jersey. And in fact we were victorious, and saw many leaves of red, yellow, orange, etc. Take that, Nature!

To get to New Jersey we followed the Hudson River Greenway up to the GW Bridge, which connects Manhattan with New Jersey. Even from half way across the bridge, we could start to see small patches of fall color on the Jersey side.. vibrant reds and yellows instead of the muted browns we had seen up to that point.

Once across the bridge we headed northwest along the 9W highway, where I experimented with some action! shots-- basically trying to take some photos while riding. After several miles we turned back towards the river and followed the wonderfully scenic Henry Hudson Drive back towards the bridge.

Once we returned to the city we did a quick loop around Central Park. J said that this was a rite of passage for cyclists in NYC, and who am I to argue the point?

Animules: only the domesticated kind
Total Distance: 39 miles
Elevation Gain: 3600 feet
Route (on bikely.com): Jersey Fall Foliage with Park Loop

West Side-Brooklyn Loop (about 40 miles)

2007-10-24T19:59:00.000-07:00

This ride begins on the upper west side, follows the Hudson River Greenway downtown, then takes you over the bridge for a nice tour of Brooklyn. The Brooklyn bridge has a fairly wide pedestrian/bike lane; the ped side was packed with tourists, but there were just a few cyclists sharing the bikelane with us. Once over the bridge, the route leads through some lovely residential areas of Brooklyn, through Prospect Park, and then down Ocean Parkway to Coney Island. The main amusement park at Coney Island was closed... semi-permanently it seems. Apparently there's a controversial plan to develop the site of the Astroland park and build god knows what. Happily Nathan's is open year round, so we stopped and had dogs and fries, which really hit the spot.

After lunch we continued along the lower New York bay and picked up another waterfront multi-use path that offered up some nice views of the bay and Staten Island. Beware the headwinds!

Winding our way back to the Brooklyn Bridge, we headed up Clinton St.. a beautiful tree-lined residential street full of brownstones and amazing historic churches. Heading back over the bridge in the late afternoon, the light illuminated the city skyline and the nearby Manhattan bridge.

Animules: some dead rats that I somehow missed
Total Distance: 39 miles
Elevation Gain: 1440 feet
Route (on bikely.com): West Side-Brooklyn loop

Dining Notes

For dinner we headed over to the Neptune Room, a nice little seafood bistro not far from R and J's place. I had a nice salad with arugula, roasted red peppers, and fried artichoke leaves, and an entree of lobster risotto that was rich and comforting without being heavy. For dessert we shared a devine vanilla panna cotta. Yum!

Hudson River Ramble (12 miles)

2007-10-23T19:27:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I was in NYC visiting friends who are long-time avid cyclists, so we took advantage of the (mostly) stellar weather to ride three days in a row. Yay! I'll describe the routes-- as well as the post-ride dining and entertainment-- over the next few posts. But first I want to give a shoutout and big thank you to my buddies R and J in NYC. They were incredibly hospitable and generous while my junk and I were occupying their living room for 4 days.

A quick note about the equipment used on these rides: For this trip I rented a 7 speed hybrid from Eddie's Bicycles Shop down the street from R and J's abode on the upper west side. This shop features a friendly staff and a fleet of wobbly-wheeled, fender-rattling cross-town Fujis ($35/day). I was actually quite surprised how comfortable the bike was, considering how many miles we logged.

Anyway, the first day's afternoon forecast (or futurecast as the local weatherman described it) called for thunderstorms, so we just took a quick jaunt up the Hudson River Greenway to the base of the George Washington Bridge. The greenway is a nice multi-use path that runs right alongside the west side waterfront from Battery part to the GW bridge. The path takes a little detour at 125th street, but this affords an opportunity to cruise by the Cotton Club and Dinosaur Bar B Que before rejoining the path.

At the base of the GW bridge is a very small red lighthouse with some
interesting history and literary credentials. Honestly it seems too small to imagine that it was ever very effective. On the other hand, I didn't see any remnants of shipwrecks along the waterfront, so I guess it did alright.

Animules: domesticated urban animal life, lots of squirrels
Distance: 12 miles
Elevation: 869 feet
Route: Hudson River Ramble (bikely.com)

Dining and Entertainment Notes

On Friday night we had a lovely meal at Haru in the neighborhood. I had some particularly tasty tempura and a roll combo that left me feeling a little bit like Violet Beauregarde. Good times.

After dinner we headed down to the Village Vanguard to catch a performance by the Heath Brothers. This is a wonderfully intimate venue in a subterranean space, where you just feel the history of the place oozing out of the bricks. The Heath brothers were great-- charming, funny, clearly enjoying the jazz lifestyle.

Mt. Hamilton (40 miles)

2007-10-14T17:53:00.000-07:00

One of my goals for the upcoming winter is to ride to the summit of the three bay area peaks (Mts. Diablo, Hamilton, and Tamalpais). I've made it to the ranger station junctions at Diablo and Tam, but I've never ridden Mt. Hamilton. So today I decided to give it a shot.

Mt Hamilton, located in the south bay near San Jose, is, I believe, the tallest peak in the bay area, with its various summits (there are several along the ridge) measuring in the 4200-4300 foot range. It's also probably the easiest of the three to climb, since it's gently graded most of the way. Of course the price of the gentle grade is a very long climb: from the base of Mt Hamilton Road up to Lick Observatory is 18 miles. But I much prefer a long gentle climb to a short steep one, so Hamilton was right up my alley. The first twelve miles were pretty easy, with the steady ascent broken by a couple of 1-2 mile descents. This provided a nice respite during the climb, but then later coming down it meant that I had to do a little more climbing when I was pretty pooped.

The last 6-7 miles were a bit tougher. The road leading up to the Observatory is a bit steeper than the previous 12 miles, and I had a little mini-bonk on the last few miles. I had been going at a steady pace of 6-7 mph in the first 12 miles, but had to drop down to 4-5 mph on the final ascent. I just ran out of energy, and actually felt a little nauseous when I finally made it to the Observatory. I had only consumed half a luna bar and one gel in about 3 hours of steady climbing, so I don't think I had enough calories to keep me going. But I made it, so yay!

Lick Observatory is interesting.. it was built between 1876 and 1888, and has been run by the University of California since 1888 (UC has its mitts on all kinds of things that most people don't know about). According to wikipedia, the gentle grade of the road was to facilitate the transportation, by horse and mule-drawn wagons, of building materials for the observatory.

Near the end of the long descent down the mountain, I heard a pop and pulled off to the side of the road. I had broken a spoke and my back wheel was so out of true that it was rubbing against the frame. Fabulous. A couple of cyclists stopped to offer help, but none of us had a spoke wrench or knew how to true a wheel, so we just loosened everything as much as we could so I could coast the last 3 miles down the hill. The woman who stopped said that her husband ran a bike shop in Santa Cruz.. I think she said it was called Sprockets. So, a shout out to the woman from Sprockets who stopped to help. Anyway, I dropped the bike off at the shop to have the spoke fixed and the wheel trued. My two readers will remember the trouble I went through when my other bike started popping spokes left and right, so let's hope I'm not heading down that path with the Dolce as well.

Animules: horses, several deer, lots of suicidal squirrels
Total Distance: 39 miles
Time in the Saddle: 4 hours
Elevation Gain: 5900 feet
Route (on bikely.com): Mt Hamilton

September mileage stats

2007-10-01T19:12:00.000-07:00

My father was visiting this weekend, so I didn't get to do any riding, which kinda sucked. Still, managed to log over 400 miles in September.

September mileage: 411
September Time in the Saddle: 34.3 hours

Mount Diablo Junction

2007-09-23T14:58:00.000-07:00

Today I road up Mount Diablo, to the ranger station junction, for the first time in 2-3 years and only the second time ever. The first and last time I did this ride it was just too much for me, and I kinda figured that I would never want to do it again. But I've been doing a lot more climbing this season, so I thought I should give it another try and see if it was as bad as I remembered.

Mount Diablo is one of the three major peaks in the bay area (along with Mt Tamalpais in marin and Mt Hamilton in the south bay) and a favorite ride for lots of cyclists. There are two approaches to the ranger station, Northgate and Southgate. From the junction of that two roads, at 2200 feet, it's another 4.5 miles to the summit, which is about 3800 feet. Both times I've done this ride I've followed the Yellowjackets routesheet, which leads you up the more gently graded Southgate to the junction and then down Northgate.

Anyway, from the base of Southgate to the junction is a steady 6 mile climb. The average grade on this road is apparently 4.5%, but there are sections in the first 2 miles that are steeper. To my surprise I really didn't find the ride that difficult this time around. In fact I actually enjoyed it quite a bit, so I guess that means that I've become much better at climbing over the past couple of years. Whee! It took me pretty much exactly 1 hour to reach the junction, which isn't gonna break any records but it's pretty good for me. Next time I'll either try to improve on that time or try for the summit.

Oh, and a shoutout to the guy who helped me with my flat tire at the entrance to Southgate. I went to fix my flat and realized that the guy at the shop who installed my new cassette put my quick release on so tightly that I couldn't open it. Jerk. So thanks to the guy to stopped to helped me open it and then proceeded to fix my flat for me.

Total miles: 34
Total time in the saddle: 3 hours
Elevation gain: 2300 feet

Calistoga Loop (52 miles)

2007-09-22T18:17:00.000-07:00

On Thursday I left work early and drove up to Calistoga for a couple of days to relax and rejuvenate. Naturally I took along one of the bikes for a little jaunt on Friday. I ended up taking the Terry touring bike, since I figured I might be stopping at a winery along the way and would then need the use of the panniers to carry back purchases. While in Calistoga I stayed at the Indian Springs Resort, my favorite place in Calistoga. They have a huge (like Olympic size) mineral pool fed from their own geyser right next to the pool. I love it.

Oh, and then on Friday morning when I woke up and popped my head outside, this beautiful hot-air balloon was passing right over the resort. Ah, wine country...

The ride, called the "Reverse Calistoga" loop, is from the Oakland Yellowjackets routesheet library. My total mileage was 6-7 miles higher since my starting point was in downtown Calistoga. The route is pretty straightforward: you follow Silverado Trail a couple of miles, then turn east for a bit of a climb up Deer Park/Howell Mountain road, then take Ink Grade to Chiles Pope Valley to Lake Hennessey. Then it's back up Silverado Trail. There was a steady climb up Deer Park/Howell Mountain, but it wasn't too bad, topping out at around 1800 feet before I turned onto Ink Grade. Ink Grade is a well-known climb in the north bay (it's featured in most of the centuries in the napa area) so I was expecting some pretty harsh climbing at this point. But it turns out that this route approached Ink Grade from the other end so all I had to do was descend. Maybe that's why they call this route the "reverse" Calistoga. Whatever. I was quite happy to be plunging down this grade rather than slogging up it.

The rest of the ride was really nice. The route takes you through vineyards and farmland, by the incredibly dry Lake Hennessey, and through two villages, Angwin and Pope Valley. Not many services to be had in this back country, so I was glad to have my panniers with plenty of food and water.

Animules: 2 foxes (I think), several deer, many lazy cows
Total Miles: 52
Elevation Gain: 3900 ft
Route map (bikely.com): Calistoga Loop

Wine Notes

As long as I'm up in wine country, it seems stupid to not do a little bit of winetasting, right? So on Friday, right after finishing up the ride, I headed over to Vincent Arroyo. I've been meaning to visit this place for quite some time. It's off the beaten path a bit, but I had heard that they had very good wines and that they sell out of their small production early in the season. Turns out that you're supposed to have an appointment for tasting, but Dave, my host, graciously signed me up for an impromptu appointment. I thought I was pretty special to receive this treatment until I saw them do the same for other walk-ins. Apparently they aren't zoned for a public tasting room, but they are happy to accommodate a small number of walk-ins.

Vincent Arroyo produces only about 8000 cases a year, and most of that is sold on pre-order before it's even bottled. I bought a bottle of their 2006 Chardonnay, which is lightly oaky with a bit of citrus, and a 2005 Petite Syrah, their signature wine. I also tried the 2005 Melange reserve (a gamay blend) and the 2005 Entrada, a blend of old vine Syrah, Petite Syrah, and Cabernet. It was a very elegant wine with a smooth finish, but at $65 a bottle, a little more than I wanted to pay.

On Saturday, on my way back to town, I stopped in at Heitz Cellars, just outside of St Helena on highway 29. Heitz is known for their Cabernet Sauvignons, particularly the Oakville "Martha's Vineyard" label. After trying their 2005 Chardonnay and a Verdot, I tasted the 2002 "Trailside Vineyard" Cab, then the 1998 Bella Oaks Cab. I actually preferred the latter because it had a lovely smooth finish, but that's probably due in part to the fact that it was 1998, right? Next I sampled three ports-- the Ink Grade port, the "vintage" Ink Grade port, and the Grignolino ruby port, that has an interesting citrus aroma that I don't think I've run across in ports. After all this, the host poured me a bit of their signature Martha's Vineyard cab, but my palette was pretty overloaded at that point. I'm sure it was delicious though. So, I ended up buying two bottles of the Chardonnay, one bottle of the Verdot, and one bottle of each of the ports. Yeehah!

Orinda-Palomares

2007-09-16T17:13:00.000-07:00

Today I did the Orinda-Palomares ride again, for the first time since early June. This is one of my favorite rides in the east bay, but it's really a spring or fall ride (it's a bit too warm in the summer for it). I got a chance to try out my new cassette on the climb up Palomares Road, and I was pleased that the additional granny gear on the new cassette really made a difference on the steep sections. I used to wish I had just one lower gear on some of these climbs, and now I do! Whee!

Animules: lots of deer on Palomares Road
Distance: 58 miles
Elevation gain: 2300 feet
Time in the Saddle: 4.5 hours
Route: Orinda-Palomares (bikely.com)

new cassette and then some

2007-09-09T21:27:00.000-07:00

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I had ordered a new 28-11 8-speed cassette for the Dolce. It finally came in this week, but after the shop installed it, the mechanic noticed that the pulley of the rear derailleur was rubbing against the lowest gear. Turns out that rear derailleurs are designed for a maximum size rear sprocket, and if you exceed this max size by too much, the jockey pulley rubs against the low gear sprocket. Who knew?

My options were: put the old 25-12 cassette back on or keep the new cassette and buy a new, better derailleur. So now I have a new cassette and a new Ultegra GS rear derailleur. Woohoo!

Dumbarton-Palo Alto ride

2007-09-09T19:34:00.000-07:00

Last weekend on my Half Bay in a Day route, I rode over two of the three major bay area bridges that are open to cyclists ( the Golden Gate and the new Carquinez). So today I decided to traverse the third, the Dumbarton bridge, which is the southern-most bridge that crosses the bay, linking Fremont on the east bay with Palo Alto on the peninsula. I followed the Oakland Yellowjackets' routesheet (pdf), but I started at a different BART station to tack on a few extra miles.

Overall, this is a relatively uninspiring ride. It takes you through some nice parts of Palo Alto, Portola, and Woodside on the peninsula (ground I've covered on several other peninsula rides), but the bridge itself isn't all that interesting, and frankly, the areas surrounding the bridge smell really bad. The one area that was a bit interesting was the marshlands on the Fremont side of the bridge. This is the second weekend in a row that I've stumbled upon some interesting bay area marshlands that I had no idea even existed. I probably don't associate the bay area with wetlands because San Francisco and the east bay shoreline have filled them all in. Anything that was swamp back in the 19th century is now land-fill, of course. I've been reading on the internets that 85% of the bay area's original marshes and shorelines have been altered in the last 150 years. But it seems that there are these pockets around the bay-- in Marin, in the north San Pablo bay area, and in this area of Fremont-- where agencies have attempted to preserve and restore the natural shoreline habitats.

This one is called the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay WIldlife Refuge. This was the first urban National Wildlife refuge in the U.S., and it covers 30,000 acres of bay, salt ponds, marsh, etc. They have a beautiful visitors center and several nature hike trails, so I definitely plan on returning there when I have a bit more time to explore.

But enough of the positive, let's talk about the negative! Maybe it's my long biking season wearing me down, and/or the 3200 miles I've puts on the bikes since January, but I've developed some pet peeves that really prevent me from fully enjoying a ride. All three were present on the Dumbarton ride:

1. Poor road quality. I swear there are maybe 5 roads in the entire bay area that are not collections of poorly patched potholes, tree root cracks, earthquake fissures, and small boulders. Is this a conspiracy to make us all buy expensive carbon frame bikes? I actually have things fall off of my bikes because of the poor quality of the roads. Oh well, I guess I didn't need that rear reflector anyhow.

2. Headwinds. Seriously, it is possible to have headwinds in every direction during a single ride? Wtf?

3. Shards of glass in the bike lane, covering the entire width of the bike lane, just for good measure. I know we all love the smashy-smashy, but can we be a little less ghetto in the ghetto?

Speaking of ghetto, I parked my car at the Fruitvale BART station and when I got back in the afternoon I noticed that the lock on my driver's side door was a bit wonky, and there were papers and junk strewn about the passenger seat. So, somebody broke into my car (by opening my incredibly secure door lock), went rummaging through my glove box, map slots, ash tray (?), but didn't take anything. I don't keep anything of real value in the car because people keep fucking breaking into it, but I did have my stereo face and several CDs in one of the compartments and they were left untouched. Either they didn't look in there or they don't like my taste in music. But who doesn't love Lynyrd Skynyrd?!

Apparently my model of Toyota has the world's easiest locks to pop open. I wouldn't really mind them taking a peek inside, but their handiwork is really screwing up the lock mechanisms on the doors. At this point the passenger side door lock is completely busted, and now the driver's side is getting pretty bad. Thanks a lot hoodlums.

Total Miles: 60
Time in the saddle: 5 hours
Elevation gain: 1100 feet

Half Bay in a Day

2007-09-02T19:26:00.000-07:00

Last week I had a brilliant idea: to circumnavigate the San Francisco bay over the course of 2 days. I would start in San Francisco and travel clockwise, passing through Marin and the North Bay on the first day, then begin day two in Oakland and travel through the east bay, across the Dumbarton bridge, and up the peninsula to finish in SF. That was the plan. I ended up completing the first leg, from SF to Oakland, but then lost my motivation for the second day. Which is why this entry is called "Half Bay in a Day" rather than "Bay in 2 Days".

I've mentioned elsewhere that there's a plan to eventually encircle the bay with a multi-use path called the Bay Trail. Right now there are huge gaps in the trail and some sections are unpaved, so until it's completed, you have to piece together a route around the bay based on the existing network of paths, bike lanes, designated bike routes, highways, etc. While there were some interesting sections of the ride, like the north bay marshlands and traveling over the new span of the Carquinez bridge, overall it wasn't that pleasurable. I think I'll wait until the Bay Trail is complete before trying it again.

The route begins at the Ferry Building in San Francisco, and follows the well-traveled route along the waterfront, over the Golden Gate bridge, through Sausalito, Corte Madera, San Rafael, and Novato. This stretch of the route through Marin (about the first 35 miles or so) was very pleasant, although once you get through Sausalito, the bay is out of sight for quite a while. I could have followed a different route closer to the water, one that goes by San Quentin, but that's not all that pleasant. Side note: isn't it strange how, in the bay area, the maximum security prisons occupy great waterfront property? They could move San Quentin to Bakersfield and convert that land to expensive condos in a flash.

At around mile 40 the route joins Highway 37, which is the only way to get from Novato to Vallejo and is, I believe, technically a "freeway" in certain spots. I really don't enjoy riding on the shoulder of freeways for 15 miles, with cars and tanker trucks zipping by at 65+. However, this highway does have a nice generous shoulder the entire stretch, with those safety bumps providing an extra buffer between you and the cars. It wasn't an ideal cycling road, but it's kind of the only option if you want to get from point A to point B in this part of the bay. So I just plugged in the iPod, put my head down, and tried to blast through this stretch as quickly as possible.

The terrain right along the water in the north bay is unspectacular, but vaguely interesting: it's all salt water marsh where the Petaluma River, Tolay Creek, and Sonoma Creek all enter the bay. Apparently this is area is called the Napa-Sonoma Marsh, and represents a prime example of tidal wetlands. There are several spots along the highway where you can pull off and find trailheads and wildlife viewing spots. So that was kind of interesting. Also, everytime I'm around marshes I think of that X-Files episode with Luke Wilson, where Mulder asks if there are any swamps in the area, and the Sheriff says "We used to have swamps, only the EPA made us take to calling 'em wetlands." Heh.

Past the wetlands, the route takes you through a ghetto-y part of Vallejo to the new Carquinez bridge span, the Alfred Zampa Memorial Span. Go Afred, you got your own bridge! The new span has a lovely bike-pedestrian lane along the western side of the bridge, joining the Golden Gate and the Dumbarton as the select bridges in the bay area with bicycle access. I'm looking at you, Bay Bridge...

The Carquinez bridge dumps you into Crockett, from where you take a lovely little tour past the ConocoPhillips oil refinery. Nasty! After that, the last 10 miles wind through east bay suburbs (Rodeo, Hercules, El Sobrante, etc.) back to sweet, sweet home Oaktown.

Total Miles: 80
Time in the saddle: 7.3 hours
Elevation gain: 3400 feet
route: SF-Oakland via north bay

August mileage stats

2007-08-31T18:18:00.000-07:00

August was good. Thanks to the ride down the coast, I logged over 500 miles in the month, a first ever.

August mileage: 516
August Time in the Saddle: 47 hours

East Bay Trails (CFGFC lite)

2007-08-26T19:52:00.000-07:00

This weekend I decided to do a shorter, modified version of the CFGFC route, for two reasons: a) I wanted to proof the route to make sure nothing had changed since last year (construction, road closures, etc.) and b) I wanted to try some different routes for the last 30 miles between Fremont and Oakland.

Basically the first 70 miles of the CFGFC are great. You've got the Oakland hills, the San Ramon Valley, a few nice multi-use trails, good road conditions, and nice scenery. The problem is the final leg between Fremont and Oakland, or at least the stretch between Fremont and San Leandro. It's basically a wasteland of industrial parkways, ghettos, and barrios, sprinkled with the occasional stripmall. It's a bit depressing, if not dangerous in some spots. So, each year I hit the road in search of a better route. I like to think of it as my own search for a Northwest Passage. Anyway, today's effort was not wholly successful, but I did find some new and interesting multi-use trails that I'll probably incorporate into the CFGFC. So we'll call this ride the East Bay Trail Excursion.

This ride began at Orinda BART station, traveled south through San Ramon valley, west through Niles Canyon, and then north more or less along the bay to end at Fruitvale BART. Notable trails used on the ride include:

Lafayette Moraga Trail and Iron Horse Trail: my two readers will recognize these trails from previous rides. Both are well graded, scenic, and high quality.

Alameda Creek Trail: This trail runs alongside the Alameda Creek, from Niles Canyon all the way to the bay. The trail along the southern bank is paved for cyclists and what have you; the trail along the northern bank is dirt and gravel for horses and people who like dirt. It's not as pretty as the Iron Horse or the other trails in the San Ramon valley, but it's pretty nice for Fremont and Union City.

Union City Trail: This is a strange, hidden little multi-use trail I stumbled upon in Union City. This one is deep undercover people: there aren't even any websites that describe it. Think on that. The good part about it is that it's not busy at all (in fact it was empty). The bad part is that it might be abandoned? I couldn't tell. There seemed to be a lot of obstacles to actually using the trail, like closed gates and a section with open, raised railroad tracks, so I'm wondering if this trail is officially in use. It was a bit creepy.. I had a thought that someone could disappear on this trail and no one would ever know. So, it's definitely going into the CFGFC route.

Bay Trail from San Leandro to Marina Park: This is part of the "Bay Trail" that will someday (!) encircle the entire bay with over 400 miles of continuous multi-use trails. Won't that be awesome?! It will totally solve my northwest passage issue. But until it's completed (date unknown), we have to make due with these small pieces of the trail. This one runs just a few miles right along the bay in San Leandro. The water is so close here, just a small global warming hiccup would easily flood the path. The headwinds are a bitch traveling north along the water, but the scenery is worth it.

Distance: 75 miles
Time in the Saddle: about 6.5 hours
Elevation Gain: 1370 feet
Route: East bay trails

cfgfc 2007 logo

2007-08-20T19:28:00.000-07:00

I've been working on the logo for the 2007 cfg fall century.. here's what I have so far:

Gear ratios

2007-08-20T18:43:00.000-07:00

For most of June and July I spent a lot of my saddle time on the Terry touring bike, in preparation for the coastal ride. The Terry has mountain-bike gearing more or less: a standard triple up front (52-42-30) with a 9 speed 11-32t cassette in back. So with the 30-32 combination, you have a decent granny gear to get you up most hills.

This weekend I took the Dolce out for the Holstein Hundred, and I had completely forgotten how different the gear ratios are on this bike. I definitely felt it on every climb. When I got back home I started counting, and soon realized that, although the triple in front is the same, the Dolce has a 12-25 cassette as opposed to the 11-32 on the Terry. Huge difference! So on Sunday I took a quick trip over to Alameda Bicycle and ordered a new 11-28 cassette. This will give me the same gears on the Specialized that I have on the Terry, with the exception of that lowest granny gear (the 32). I can't wait to get it installed and try it out on the nearest hill.

Holstein Hundred, more or less

2007-08-18T18:49:00.000-07:00

Today was the 14th annual Holstein Hundred century, which begins and ends in the tiny town of Tamales and does a couple of strangely-designed loops through Bodega Bay, Occidental, Valley Ford, and the general countryside around Petaluma. I had planned on doing the full century, but in the end I only did a metric. Not their metric, but a metric nonetheless. There are many reasons for this, but mostly I think it's the ride organizers' fault for giving me an easy out.

I woke up at 5am to drive up to Tamales, got there by 6:30, and was on the road by 7. One thing we lucked out on was the weather: it was sunny and clear, no marine layer at all. This was especially nice when we got out to the coast near Bodega Bay (where Hitchcock filmed The Birds if you didn't know). It's always nice to actually see the ocean when you're riding on the coast, as opposed to peering into a deep fog bank. Things were going quite nicely through the first 20 miles or so, until we turned inland again and began a climb up Coleman Valley Road.

I've never climbed this road before, and come to think of it, I didn't really climb it this time because I had to walk my bike up half of it. It's only about 1200 feet or so, but it's steep almost the entire way. Someone on the internets claimed that the grade was 9.5%, which is about 5% more grade than I generally enjoy. This climb was featured in one of the Tour of California stages, and it does afford some lovely views which I was able to appreciate during my long walk up to the summit.

Once we got passed this climb, the route mellowed out a bit and took us through parts of Occidental and Valley Ford that I had traversed on my Petaluma ride back in May. At this point I ended up latching on to some women from Livermore who had a little paceline going. I pulled for a while and they invited me to ride with them, but honestly their pace ended up being too much for me. They were going about 25 mph, and I just couldn't sustain that, even hooked on to the back.

At about mile 45 we turned west and that's when the headwinds began. Those lasted for about 10 miles until the route took us east again, past the starting point at Tamales High. I mentioned the strange loops that comprised the route.. basically we did a big figure eight, then passed by the starting point before beginning another loop to the south. Earlier in the morning I had thought, I can stop by my car to deposit my arm warmers, leg warmers, etc. But then after all the climbing and headwinds, and with the knowledge that another 40 miles and 3500 feet of climbing lay ahead, I was thinking, I can stop by my car, have some lunch, and call it a day! You see how this is really the organizers' fault? Because let me tell you, I wasn't the only one who had this thought. At any rate, I actually continued on a few miles passed the high school, spotted the next climb, and then backtracked to the start. So, I ended up with about 65 miles total. I'm sure I could have finished the course, but I don't think I would have enjoyed it. And as one of the volunteers said at the post-ride lunch, It's supposed to be fun, not torture.

Miles: 65
Time in the saddle: about 5 hours
Route for the Holstein Hundred: portion done and portion not done

SF-SLO Tour, Day 5

2007-08-10T21:00:00.000-07:00

Day 5: San Simeon to San Luis Obispo(route), 43 miles
Total time in the saddle: 4 hours 15 minutes
Elevation gain: 1800 feet

After the challenges of day 4, the relatively short, flat route of the final day was a welcome sight. And although it wasn't as scenic as the previous days along the coastal cliffs, there was still plenty of interesting scenery. Just a few miles outside of San Simeon, we traveled through a cute little beach village called Moonstone Beach and then through Cambria. Past Cambria the route took us a bit inland for the next 10 miles or so, and we didn't see the ocean again until Cayucos, another cute beach town.

A few miles down the coast we stopped for lunch at Morro Bay. I had been feeling sluggish and dehydrated in the morning, but felt revived after lunch. In contrast, kc had been feeling pretty good up until Morro Bay, but then he ended up seriously bonking the final 15 miles to San Luis Obispo.

Once we arrived in SLO, kc crashed out for a few hours while I explored the quaint downtown area. Later that evening, while investigating dinner options, we ended up stumbling upon this wall downtown covered in bubble gum. Disgusting!

For my part, it was a great end to a great tour down the coast. I only wish I had been able to continue a few more days down to Santa Barbara, but alas I had to return to work. Next year I think I'll be ready for something even more challenging.

SF-SLO Tour, Day 4

2007-08-09T18:18:00.000-07:00

Day 4: Big Sur to San Simeon (route), 67 miles
Total time in the saddle: 7 hours
Elevation gain: 6500 feet

At 67 miles with plenty of steep climbing, we knew that the stage from Big Sur to San Simeon was going to be a "long hard day", to quote from my Lonely Planet west coast cycling book. A part of me was looking forward to the challenge, while I think all of kc was dreading the pain it would entail.

Side note: my boss' boss' boss, a hard core cyclist, maintains that you have to be a bit of a masochist to love cycling. I suppose this is true, but I don't think that kc has reached the point where he has embraced the pain.

Anyway, because we had our printed cue sheets and elevation profiles with us, we knew that right out of the gate we'd have a climb up to 1000 ft. kc decided to leave Big Sur a bit earlier and walk up that first climb, in order to conserve his energy. I would leave a bit later and meet him 7 miles south of Big Sur, at the "cafe" at Coast Gallery. I was checked out of the campgrounds and on the machine by 8:45, and while the climb was a bit steep in places, it was manageable. At Coast Gallery I found kc waiting for me but still sans coffee. Turns out the cafe noted in my guide book had closed two years back. Oops.

Between Coast Gallery and Lucia, the next stop with services (mile 25), there was nothing but coastline and constant ups and downs. Along the way we did stop at McWay falls, which is the only waterfall in California that falls directly into the ocean (or beach at low tide, apparently). Kc noted that it was like the "Earth is pissing".

We stopped at Lucia, which is little more than a very expensive restaurant and general store along the highway, but it's pretty much the only stop along a 25 mile stretch, so there were plenty of tourists also taking a break there. We got drinks and ate the last of our soggy 2 day old PB&J sandwiches we had made in Monterey (blech), and met a couple of folks also touring along highway 1. They were heading back home to Redondo Beach, but were going to stop and camp just a few miles up the road.

After Lucia, it was more rolling hills until we reach the next village on the highway, Gorda. Like Lucia, Gorda is basically just a restaurant, cafe, and general store, but it has a little more character than Lucia, and we spent about 45 minutes just relaxing and chatting with some of the characters hanging out there, and contemplating the two climbs we had to look forward to.

Besides the initial climb of the day and the undulations of miles 5-35, there were two principal climbs between miles 40-45. Lonely Planet classified one as "moderate" and the other as "steep", and early in the day kc had taken to calling them los cuernos del diablo (the devil's horns). After a quick descent south of Gorda, the climbing began. We conquered the first cuerno, took a breather, and then took on the much steeper second peak and conquered that one as well. Victory! After that it was screaming descent past Ragged Point, then onto flatter terrain outside of San Simeon. We arrived at the motel at 6:40pm, 10 hours after I had left Big Sur. Good times!

SF-SLO Tour, Day 3

2007-08-08T21:13:00.000-07:00

Day 3: Monterey to Big Sur (route), 40 miles
Total time in the saddle: 4 hours
Elevation gain: 4900 feet

We got a fairly early start on Day 3, and were on the bikes by 9:30. Just south of Monterey, we cruised along the 17 mile scenic drive, which was picturesque but a bit dismal with the heavy marine layer.

We had quick pitstops at both Carmel and Carmel Highlands, where we loaded up on supplies at the Carmel Highlands General Store. Outside the store I chatted with a woman (a Carmel Highlands firefighter?) about the 500 mile AIDS ride down the coast. She had done the ride the previous two years and was trying to talk me into it, but the mileage sounded excruciating: 80-90 miles each day. Crazy.

The next 10 miles were classic rugged coastline, with highway 1 winding up and down, hugging the cliffs. In places there was little to no shoulder and quite a bit of traffic, so that was a bit sketchy. Still, it was beautiful ride, and a taste of what was to come on day 4.

The last 10 miles or so took us inland a bit, through pastures and grazing cows, until we started climbing gently into the redwood forests of Big Sur. There we had reserved a tent cabin at Big Sur Campground and Cabins.

It was rustic but clean and blessedly free of mosquitos. After a quick survey of the handful of restaurants along the highway, we settled on the Maiden Pub in Big Sur Village. This turned out to be my favorite restaurant of the whole trip.. I highly recommend the burgers there. Deelish.

SF-SLO Tour, Day 2

2007-08-08T19:42:00.001-07:00

Day 2: Santa Cruz to Monterey (route), 48.2 miles
Total time in the saddle: 4.5 hours
Elevation gain: 1800 feet

The morning of Day 2 began with a quick trip to the drug store to pick up the items we needed to recover from Day 1. For me that meant super power sunscreen and a bandana; for kc it was ace bandages, muscle ointments, and generally things that smelled like menthol.

South of Santa Cruz, Highway 1 is a semi-freeway with bicycle traffic prohibited, so the route took us along side streets through the outskirts of town and out through rural agricultural land. Although we were probably never further than a mile or two away from the coastline, we didn't see the ocean for most of the day. Instead we traveled along side fragrant strawberry fields, patches of lettuce and other veggies, and the like.

While stopping for sandwiches and coffee in the village of Marina we ran into a gaggle of small town cheerleaders. It took the barista 15 minutes to make my single espresso because every one of those cheerleaders had ordered a double half-caff carmel mochiatto frappucino, or something similar. Terrifying.

A few miles north of Monterey, we picked up a nice multi-use trail that led us back to the coastline. This part of the coast was dominated by huge sand dunes and the ubiquitous Monterey cypress.

We arrived at the Monterey hostel a little after 5 o'clock. The hostel is more traditional than the Carmelita cottages in Santa Cruz, but the facility was super clean and the location couldn't be beat. We were just blocks away from Cannery Row, so we strolled down to the waterfront for dinner at a pub called Bullwacker's. I believe that everything we ate at that place was deep-fried. It tasted pretty good, but didn't sit too well with either of us that night.

SF-SLO Tour, Day 1

2007-08-07T21:06:00.000-07:00

The mission: to bicycle from San Francisco (okay, Half Moon Bay) to San Luis Obispo; 250 miles in 5 days. Along the way we would experience ups and downs, cold marine layers and glorious sunshine, small town coffee, and questionable fish and chips. But we made it! Read on to see how the journey unfolded...

Day 1: Half Moon Bay to Santa Cruz (route), 50 miles
Total time in the saddle: 4.5 hours
Elevation gain: 2400 feet

Getting there: From the beginning I knew that I wanted to start the first day a bit outside of San Francisco, both to reduce the mileage a bit and to avoid the particulary sketchy stretches of highway 1 around Devil's Slide (south of Pacifica). So after waking up early to catch BART into the city, I met up with kc and took Caltrain down the peninsula to Hillsdale. Caltrain is well-equipped to handle bicycles, so it's a great choice for cyclists. At Hillsdale, we loaded the bikes onto the SamTrans bus (route 294) and headed to Half Moon Bay. Naturally, a car accident slowed traffic on highway 92 to a crawl, so we didn't actually start riding until 11:30.

By the time we hit the road, the morning marine layer had cleared and we had fabulous weather the entire way to Santa Cruz. Along the way we stopped at several state beaches, including San Gregorio and Pebble Beach. This isn't the Pebble Beach famous for golf (that's later on day 3) but rather a small beach near Pescadero that features interesting rock formations and abundant tide pools.

After stopping at the roadside Gazo's Grill for lunch, we took some time to explore the terrain around Pigeon Point Lighthouse. Then it was on through Davenport to Santa Cruz. Outside of town we picked up a nice multi-use trail that took us by Natural Bridges park, which didn't really look like a natural bridge from our angle. Weird.

In Santa Cruz we had reserved a private room at the Carmelita Cottages hostel. This was my first foray into hostel accommodations, and I must say that I was impressed. The cottages were really quaint, perfectly situated within walking distance of both downtown and the boardwalk, and sharing a bathroom with a French (Swiss?) couple wasn't really all that bad.

We trolled the downtown stretch for a while before settling on Saturn Cafe for dinner. Although the window advertised "Burgers, Fries" etc. it turned out that the place was strictly vegetarian and vegan. I would say that their window advertising and menu really bury the lede on that, but the food was pretty decent all the same. After dinner we strolled down to the Santa Cruz Beach boardwalk and rode the "Tsunami" ride. A pretty good first day on the road.

July mileage stats

2007-08-02T06:15:00.000-07:00

Total mileage: 321
Total time in the saddle: 30.5 hours

Danville Railroad Loop (45 miles)

2007-07-29T10:54:00.000-07:00

I woke up on Saturday feeling a bit lethargic, so I decided to just do an easy ride over to Danville and then take BART home from Lafayette. This ride is flat for the most part, with the only significant hill coming at the beginning, with the climb up Spruce Ave. into Tilden park.

From Moraga to Danville there are multi-use trails that parallel the roads. I usually stick to the road to avoid the crowded trails, but the heat on Saturday must have kept the pedestrians and joggers away. Both the Lafayette/Moraga trail and the Iron Horse trail were practically empty.

Distance: about 45 miles
Elevation gain: 2800 feet
Time in the saddle: 4 hours
Route map:

Danville Railroad Loop

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